Nights Without Armor
by Bratanimus
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return her to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn, releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart's death sentence? (6 chapters, written post-ADWD, Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa. This is a continuation of The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own.)
1. Podrick

**Author's Note: **This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Heartfelt thanks to my beta, mrstater! Any mistakes you see are mine. Thanks for reading!

**Podrick**

It was Sansa.

A small, secret smile crept up one side of Podrick's face.

She was here – Sansa Stark – Lady Sansa – here, within shouting distance, standing alone atop a sloping hill, with the light slanting and golden as if meant for her alone and not the twittering birds of morning or the swaying soldier pines or the damp, dead grass beneath her boots. She had lifted her skirts to descend the hill a short distance, as if she wished to be out of the eyesight of her captors as they packed up their camp and prepared to travel again. Here, at last, was she – Lady Sansa, the loveliest creature Podrick figured he'd ever seen, even lovelier now than he'd remembered. He watched, mesmerized, as she brushed her long, sleek hair, dyed brown, and her pale skin appeared, in contrast, perhaps even more luminous against her dark locks, her lips more red, her eyes a blue to rival the sky as it welcomed the rising sun. She looked out toward the sunrise, her gaze following a bird in flight, her expression inscrutable and yet somehow perfect.

But over his elation, Podrick's throat felt strangled and his heart hammered, for he knew that, in order to rescue Lady Sansa, they would need to kill, he and Ser Jaime and Ser – Lady – Brienne. He shivered. But no matter. He would master his fear, for finally they had found her, the lady he had been determined to find while seeking – pretending to seek? – his former master, Lord Tyrion. Sansa. Lady Sansa. _My lady_. The name repeated itself in his mind in a hundred different tones of voice. He hid his hapless smile before his companions saw it, for it would never do if they knew how he'd dreamt of this moment.

"It is she," he whispered as gruffly as he could, glancing to his right; and Brienne, lying flat on her stomach on the grass next to him, nodded. She darted her eyes toward Jaime and he grinned at her, which made her flush, as his smiles always did.

After Sansa disappeared over the rise, the three silently and awkwardly crept backward on their elbows and knees until they were well hidden within the copse of trees at the edge of the forest once more, and then they stole back to their small camp, where their horses nibbled on the apples they'd left for them.

"We will track them today and attack tonight," said Jaime as he rummaged one-handed through his saddlebag for a slice of salt beef, which he bit into and began to chew laboriously. "We've followed them for two days and we've finally seen the lass. The time is now."

"We still do not know their number," said Brienne.

"We have a sense – "

"But we do not _know_," she insisted, giving the Kingslayer a stare that would have withered Podrick instantly had it been directed at him. Nevertheless, when she broke the gaze, she unsheathed Oathkeeper and began to oil it as if she were preparing for battle. Jaime chewed and glared at her, annoyed, until she spoke again. "We are three. How many can you kill, Jaime? Even counting the sword training you did with Ser Ilyn and now with me – "

"You needn't remind me," he muttered, rotating his left shoulder, which seemed to pain him daily, now that his weaker limb had of necessity become his dominant one. He swallowed and reflected for a moment. "Three?"

Brienne paused mid-stroke, oiled cloth in hand, and raised her eyebrow at him.

"I am being conservative," he said, bristling. "I could reliably slay four attackers quickly, when I had my hand. Perhaps more."

She began her slow oiling of her weapon again. "I believe you," she said at last, though whether she was referring to his boast of his former prowess or his speculation about his current ability, Podrick could not say.

Jaime scowled at her, then turned his back and stalked off deeper into the forest. During his absence, Podrick knew he would sharpen his words for the next round of argument. He wasn't certain why the Kingslayer seemed so rattled by Lady Brienne, but this wasn't the first time he'd wandered away during one of their many discussions. Ser Jaime held his tongue more than any man Podrick had seen in his short life, and he wondered if the knight had always behaved in this manner or if he'd somehow cultivated his restraint. Or perhaps there was something about Ser – Lady – Brienne that confused and confounded people; Podrick certainly felt even more tongue-tied than usual in her presence, even though she'd been nothing but kind to him.

While his two elders fumed separately, he busied himself by retrieving a few more apples for their horses. He did not like these uncomfortable silences between his lord and lady. What was more, he did not understand their intimacy. Every night during Podrick's watch, even the very first night after the three had escaped their hangings and fled the Brotherhood together, Jaime would curl himself around Brienne, his left arm draped possessively over her waist, with his knees tucked behind hers and his nose buried between her shoulder blades. He would sleep soundly thus, though Brienne's eyes would remain wide and blinking in the night. Podrick tried not to see, but the two did not attempt to hide their sleeping arrangement from him. It was not his place to ask, or even to wonder; yet wonder he did. How could he not? He felt so dreadfully alone, now that Brienne had her errant knight.

Mostly, what he wondered was if he would ever find himself curled around a lady like that.

"How many men can you slay, Podrick?"

The question yanked him from his reverie and he blushed as if she had read his thoughts on his face. He rubbed an apple against his doublet to wipe the dirt from it, and continued the motion unconsciously as he considered.

He'd never pondered how many men he could slay at once. He'd only had to kill one at a time during the Battle of the Blackwater. Then he'd killed the two who guarded Brienne and Jaime as they languished in the old stable, awaiting their hanging by Lady Stoneheart the following morning; but those had been alone keeping watch during a silent snowfall as the Brotherhood slept in a nearby farmhouse. They'd been isolated enough not to expect an attack, certainly not an ambush executed by one of their prisoners, a mere lad who was supposedly under the watch of their fellows in the farmhouse.

"Erm, three, perhaps, Ser. My lady."

"Three might be generous, but I hope you are right. Four would be better."

Podrick swallowed. "Yes, Ser. My lady."

Then, as if she'd guessed the unspoken question in his mind, "I might manage three. Four or five, perhaps, with luck and the Warrior at my back."

Podrick's eyes widened a bit. Five men? But then again, Brienne was no ordinary lady. In strength and skill, she was more like the Kingslayer than any man Podrick had ever seen. She, like Ser Jaime, was likely being conservative when she initially said she could slay three men.

The morning was cold, and the breath of Jaime's horse warmed Podrick's hand as it took the apple from his palm. Its name was Honor, which Podrick could only hope was a jape. He shivered, considering how his own honor had slowly twisted into something other than what he'd imagined as a boy. And yet, hadn't he only done what he would hope any squire would do for him?

Brienne had sharpened her weapon yesterday, but now she inspected it for nicks and dull spots again. "There may be eight men, or as many as thirteen, accompanying Lord Baelish and Lady Sansa."

"But the closer we allow Baelish to Ser Harrold, the more likely a receiving party will ride out to meet them." Jaime had returned, with his next argument at the ready. "Bronze Yohn's information has been true thus far. He said nine men. With a surprise attack, we three can take nine men. But if we wait until Petyr Baelish runs into Harry's envoys, we might expect twenty more."

Brienne sheathed Oathkeeper and rose. She stood two inches taller than the Kingslayer, but somehow Jaime never seemed diminutive next to her, and Podrick wondered again how a man could achieve something that defied the laws of the physical, and with so little effort, it seemed. He watched the couple from the corner of his eye as their argument continued wordlessly. But Jaime was beginning to cock another grin at Brienne, and she was beginning to flush, so he knew the argument was at a close. Jaime had won this time.

"We attack tonight," said Brienne, as if she had made the decision in the first place, and turned to attend to her horse.

Jaime looked at Podrick and winked.

* * *

They had to allow some distance between themselves and their quarry before they began to follow, so it was decided that they would continue Podrick's training after breaking their fast. Today it was to be Ser Jaime against him. Podrick didn't know whom he dreaded fighting more, the lord or the lady, for both frightened him. Each knight moved like a wild cat, Brienne with the sleek and relaxed prowess of one playing with a mouse and Jaime with the fierce and unpredictable pounce of a hungry one.

_Knees flexed, body turned, elbows up, eyes open_. Brienne's mantra played itself in his mind as Jaime advanced, and Podrick reflexively parried the sudden blow. Jaime smiled and Podrick felt his heart swell, just for a second, before two more slashes forced him to step backward quickly to regain his footing; but he'd lost any advantage he might have had in that moment of pride.

"Where is your mind?" asked Jaime briskly, still advancing. "I'm going to kill you, lad."

And he attacked again, his left arm slicing and thrusting so rapidly that it was all Podrick could do to remain facing forward as he parried and retreated. Then, somehow, he managed to hit Jaime's left shoulder with the flat of the blade of his practice sword, and Jaime winced with a quick intake of breath.

"I'm sorry, my lord," said Podrick, lowering his sword.

"Never apologize!" snapped Jaime. "And never lower your sword! I'm trying to kill you, don't ever forget that! You will show me no mercy."

Podrick shut his mouth at once; but then his opponent was upon him again, forcing Podrick back into position, and it seemed that the shoulder pain drove Jaime harder into the fight. Their swords clacked and scraped through the crisp morning air, and Podrick tried to bring his mind to the here and now, not on pleasing his teacher, so that he could let his body fight, as Brienne kept insisting that it would do if he'd just _let go_. And he'd done it before; he'd saved Lord Tyrion, and then he'd rescued Jaime and Brienne. He could do this.

Somehow he rounded a tree and dealt Jaime two fast slashes that landed at the backs of his opponent's knees, and Jaime dropped his sword. "Yes. Like that," he said, panting. "You've disabled me." He dropped to his knees and looked up at the boy. "Now finish it."

Podrick stared. Was he to kill a wounded man?

"Better to end my suffering," said Jaime, not unkindly.

So Podrick raised the sword, placed the tip at Jaime's heart, and nudged. Jaime fell backward into the snowy grass, clutching his chest and overacting.

Podrick smiled as he gathered the swords and began to pack up.

* * *

A scythe of a moon cast nary a shadow, which suited Podrick fine. But he was astonished that no one else could hear the thundering of his heart; it seemed if it beat any harder his veins would burst and the whole of his body would explode in a gruesome fountain. These things happened in stories but never in real life, he reminded himself, as his throat throbbed along with the pounding of his pulse. His eyes bulged and strained to see Brienne ahead as they crept up the hill that abutted one side of Lord Baelish's evening camp. Behind him, Jaime was as silent as shade, even with shield and armor.

The last few hours since dusk had passed in a strange fashion. Time seemed somehow impossibly slow and irretrievably quick, just as it had during the Battle of the Blackwater and on the night he'd killed those two Brotherhood guards. He knew their plan by heart, but so many things could go awry during the rescue. _I could die tonight_, a frightened part of his mind kept saying. But a braver part always answered, as Brienne had taught him, _So could many others_.

However, it was Sansa who kept his feet moving forward. Sansa, and knowing that he could never fail Brienne or Jaime and live with himself afterward.

The three fanned out as they neared the crest of the hill where Baelish, Sansa, and their retinue slept. And then luck smiled on them when the man on watch climbed the crest and accidentally met Brienne. He inhaled to yell, but Brienne's dagger silenced him with a violent slash to the throat. She caught him as he fell, supporting him almost gently under his arms and lowering him to the ground. She relieved him of his dagger, inserting it into another sheath on her sword belt, but left his sword lying on the moss, where it had fallen from his surprised hand. Crouching now, she looked in Jaime's direction, and Podrick saw his shadowy form nod.

Podrick waited, hidden, as he was told to do, while the two descended silently into the sleeping camp. He could see them now by the light of a dying campfire, around which four men slept. _Four more inside the tents_, Podrick thought hopefully. _Then Petyr Baelish and Sansa_. Brienne and Jaime moved like mirror images of each other, each long and muscular, jaws set, with pale hair and piercing eyes. Brienne had replaced her own bloody dagger in its sheath, and Oathkeeper was like an extension of her own arm. Jaime's sword was less impressive, and held in his left hand it might have seemed awkward not too long ago; but tonight his arm looked strong and steady. Podrick almost felt sorry for the sleepers around the fire; he would not want to wake to the points of their steel. Better to die in their sleep. And some would.

Podrick was gripping his sword too hard and forced himself to relax his hand a bit, as Jaime had instructed. _Save your strength however you can_, he'd said. _Save it for when it matters_.

Just as Podrick loosened his grip, Jaime and Brienne simultaneously buried their swords into two of the sleeping men, and Podrick had the surreal thought that Brienne seemed made for this, made for killing. Her body was all fluid motion, and again he was reminded of a great cat. Nothing in her movements bespoke any ungainliness or inelegance; she was beauty and poetry, death and destruction.

Jaime was much the same, but if Brienne's actions were a weird sort of poetry, smooth and lyrical, his were prose. He was quick and unpredictable, but deadly precise, even with his left hand; and as he pivoted to attack one of the sleeping men awakened by the deaths of his companions, his two rapid slashes across the man's chest and face seemed the final words of a gruesome and gory edict. He joined Brienne to take down the other man who had leapt to his feet, a longsword in his hands. Together they quickly dispatched him; but the alarm had been raised, and now five more men emerged from two small tents, swords in hand. The largest pavilion's door flaps remained closed.

All this happened in the time it took for Podrick to rise cautiously to his feet.

He'd been instructed to wait above until he had a sense of the number of Baelish's cortege, and he was not to descend into the fray until and unless it was apparent that Jaime and Brienne were in trouble. Then he would ambush from behind. But it had happened so quickly. The two were already outnumbered, and the shouts rang out sharply in the cold night air. Podrick tried to keep one eye on the largest pavilion, for if Baelish escaped now with Sansa on horseback, they might never catch up to them.

_All for naught_, he thought dizzily as he careened down the hill. Brienne had her back against a tree and was swinging Oathkeeper at two – no, three attackers. Jaime battled two men on the other side of the fire. A shape that might have been two figures huddled together emerged from the pavilion. _No_, Podrick thought.

He sheathed his sword and ran for the horses.

When he reached the beasts beyond the campfire, he whipped out his dagger – for there was no time to unhitch them – and cut the tethers that tied them to their trees and wagons, slapping them one after another on the flank to send them on their way. There must have been nine or ten, though he didn't take the time to count. Those that seemed reticent to depart he pricked on the rump with the tip of his dagger. Then he whirled and ran back to the campfire, seeking Baelish and Sansa.

As he neared the camp, Podrick saw that Brienne had killed one of her three attackers, and the other two had her well and truly cornered between two wagons. Jaime had just finished off his second foe, and he turned to face Brienne's assailants, his eyes wild and bloodshot with fury. He sank his sword into the back of the neck of the man closest to him. Brienne kicked out hard at the knee of the man bearing down on her. She was able then to emerge from between the wagons and put enough distance between her and her assailant so that she could swing her sword, which she did. The blow landed across that man's collarbone and brought him to a swift end.

The two figures that had emerged from the pavilion had tried to edge around the fighting toward the horses. Seeing the animals were gone, they instead ran up the hill, the taller one pulling the shorter one by the hand.

"Halt!" shouted Podrick. He bolted across the camp, leaping over the dying fire, and ran up the hill on a diagonal, praying that he wouldn't twist an ankle in the dark. Luck was with him, and he planted himself above the two, his sword at the ready.

Jaime and Brienne approached from behind, their swords still dripping blood. A sudden silence fell upon the camp, the only sound the ragged breathing of Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick. At last the taller figure removed his hood, and Petyr Baelish greeted Podrick. His smile was like a knife, his words even sharper.

"You do realize – Podrick, isn't it? – that I will not let you take her alive."

Swifter than lightning, Baelish grasped his captive's arm with one hand, pulled her in front of him, and with the other pressed a dagger to her throat.

Sansa's hood fell back, and her pale skin glowed in the moonlight, her eyes showing their whites as they darted from Podrick's face to Brienne's and Jaime's. Her mouth worked, but no sound came forth. Podrick's heart thrummed like a hummingbird's, though his arms remained steady as they held his sword. But Baelish's thumb pressed into the flesh of the front of Sansa's neck, and Podrick wondered if she could breathe; meanwhile, the dagger dug into the vulnerable skin under her jaw. Her hands gripped her captor's forearm for balance, but she did not struggle; any move would have invited bloodshed. He stepped to one side and backward across the hill, keeping his eyes on Podrick to his right and acknowledging Jaime and Brienne, now on his left.

"Ah, Ser Jaime, of the missing hand! Come to retrieve your missing brother's missing wife. How noble."

"Release Sansa," said Jaime, his voice deadly calm, "and we may let you live."

"A generous offer from someone who has nothing with which to bargain," said Baelish. "Of all of us, I have the only gold piece." He squeezed his captive's throat between his thumb and the hilt of the dagger until she winced and dug her fingers into his wrist. "We all know that Sansa is worth nothing to you dead, and you will kill me regardless. So I must press this dagger to her throat until you give me a horse to carry us on our merry way."

Brienne's voice was low and rough. "Your escape is not part of our plan."

"Have we met? I'm certain I would have remembered a woman of your … impressive stature." Baelish let his eyes travel up and down Brienne's armored body.

"She is the Lady Brienne of Tarth, and a knight besides," said Jaime, "and you would do well to keep your eyes where they belong."

Baelish's eyes narrowed and his smile flickered in interest. "My eyes only wish to rest upon my daughter's wedding frock, as you must know, seeing as you've met us on our way to the home of her betrothed."

"Sansa is not your daughter," said Brienne, advancing slowly, "and there will be no wedding."

Baelish continued to retreat. "Were you ever a blushing bride, my lady?" he asked with a smirk. "Surely you would not deny Sansa a second chance at love? Rumor has it that her first marriage was not, shall we say, a success."

By now the two stood on flat ground, near the campfire. Podrick, Brienne, and Jaime surrounded them in a semicircle.

"I swore an oath to her lady mother," said Brienne. "I intend to bring her home."

At Brienne's words, Sansa's eyes widened and one hand fell to her heart. Her fingers grasped blindly at her cloak.

"Catelyn Stark is dead." Baelish almost spat the words, his voice thick. "The Starks are no more. That family of traitors has been eliminated. Because of the love I bore her mother, I am providing Sansa with a new identity and a future she could not hope to have as long as the Queen Regent sits the Iron Throne."

"Selfless to the last," said Jaime with a laugh. "Every word that oozes from your mouth is bitter poison."

"Some say medicine tastes like poison," retorted Baelish. "All the same, you're better off swallowing it."

"You will swallow steel before we're done," said Jaime, stepping forward.

"And Sansa," said Baelish, "will taste my dagger."

Sansa's eyes briefly squeezed shut as the blade dug in behind her ear. A thin, dark line of blood began to run down her white neck.

"It appears we are at a bit of an impasse," Baelish went on. "Podrick, my good fellow, won't you run and get one of your horses for me? Then we can call an end to this little game."

Sansa looked at Podrick then, her eyes pleading silently; and he felt somehow utterly responsible for her. Did she remember him from King's Landing? It didn't matter. He didn't know if he could save her life, but he could keep Littlefinger talking. He spoke without taking his eyes off her, without thinking, and was surprised by how loud his voice sounded to his own ears, and how quickly the words flew from his lips. "If I were Lady Sansa, I would have stabbed you in your sleep."

Baelish barked a laugh. "He speaks! Lad, I confess, I never knew you had a voice. If you didn't sound like a bleating sheep, I might – "

But Podrick never found out what Baelish might do, for he was cut off by his own scream as Sansa thrust her cloak pin into his left eye.

As Baelish released Sansa's arm, clasping his hand to his ruined eye socket, she gripped the knife hand and twisted out from under his arm, then backed toward Podrick, tripping over her cloak as she did so. Podrick caught her awkwardly and helped her right herself. She coughed and clutched her throat, but apart from that she seemed unharmed. By the time she was on her feet and Podrick had turned, sword raised, Jaime had the point of his steel under Baelish's chin.

Littlefinger held both hands to the side and let his dagger drop to the ground, his bloody eye socket dripping and horrific. He was forced to stand on tiptoe to keep the sword from piercing his skin. He'd stopped screaming and now panted, his voice adding a high-pitched stridor of fear as the air ripped in and out of his throat. The two men stared into each other's faces, Jaime's mismatched hands steadily supporting his sword, Baelish's fingers trembling as he silently implored his assailant. Brienne held him by the back of his collar like a kitten, her own steel wrapped across his chest in a broad mockery of how he'd held Sansa a moment ago.

"Ser Jaime," he said. "Lady Brienne. Might we discuss this like civilized – "

"Be quiet and take your medicine," said Jaime, and he plunged his sword upward.

Podrick stepped in front of Sansa; a lady shouldn't have to witness such a gruesome end, no matter that the man was her captor. But she stepped aside quickly to see the blade's position – through the soft flesh under Baelish's chin, into the underbelly of the tongue, piercing the soft palate inside his mouth and the brain within his skull, and emerging bloody through the top of his head.

For a second, Podrick forgot about Sansa and felt bile rise in his throat. He managed to swallow it; it wouldn't do to be sick in front of a lady, particularly not one so lovely and gentle. Well, he'd thought her gentle until she'd stabbed Baelish in the eye, but she was still lovely. He suddenly realized that he had his arm across Sansa's chest to prevent her from getting closer to the bloody scene in front of them. He lowered his arm and took a step away from her. She pulled her cloak together in front of her to keep out the wind. A mockingbird cloak pin lay on the ground next to Baelish's feet.

Brienne braced Baelish's body so that Jaime could retrieve his weapon. In the cold silence of the snowy woods, the blatant sound of steel slipping through flesh and bone was like nothing Podrick had ever heard, or wanted to hear again. He'd seen men killed, seen them hanged, the most recent one being Ser Hyle Hunt mere weeks ago, when Brienne did not return quickly enough to the Brotherhood with Jaime as prisoner; but he'd never witnessed so closely, for so prolonged a time and without the distraction of other battle, anything as repugnant as this death. Brienne lowered Littlefinger to the ground, her mouth a grim line. Jaime watched her with a sort of fire in his eyes.

"Hold this," he told her, and presented his sword hilt-first. Brienne hesitated, looking confused as she still held her own sword, but then took it from him. "This is something I've never had the opportunity to do right after battle. How about you?"

He shook off his shield, grabbed her roughly around the waist (was that a _squeak_ that escaped the lady's throat?), and covered her mouth hungrily with his. Brienne held the two swords in her hands loosely, like bouquets of flowers that she was in danger of dropping should she swoon; and Podrick did wonder if she would indeed faint, with her eyes closed and knees half-buckled as she surrendered herself to Jaime's embrace, though the Kingslayer had her pressed tightly against him. This kiss, with their open mouths and their tongues and their bloody, dripping swords and her leg creeping up his, was far worse than improper; it was bizarre and primal and far more intimate than anything Podrick had ever witnessed so close-up. And it was doing strange things to him, things that didn't feel improper at all, that, in fact, felt quite nice; and so he shifted his gaze to Sansa.

She was pale, but her face was utterly blank, her pale eyes like shutters on an empty house.

"Are – are you all right, my lady?"

Sansa still stared at Baelish's face. "Is he really dead?" she croaked. She coughed again, a hacking, pitiful sound, and rubbed her throat; Baelish must have hurt her as he held her neck. She looked curiously at her bloody fingers as she pulled her hand away; she seemed only to realize just now that he'd nicked the skin of her neck with his dagger. Next she shifted her gaze to her other fingers, the ones that had struggled against Baelish's weapon when she'd escaped his grasp, and saw blood there, too. Slowly, like a dandelion seed drifting in the wind, she lowered to her knees.

Podrick dropped his sword and rushed to her side and helped her to sit on the cold ground.

"You are injured, my lady," he said, taking her hand in his to examine it. There was a slash across all four fingers, but fortunately the wounds did not run deep, probably because Baelish had already released his firm grip on her because of his own injury. "I will make a bandage for you when we return to our camp." Then, knowing it was unseemly for a squire to be so forward, he released her, balling his hands into fists in his own lap.

Sansa looked into Podrick's face as if seeing him for the first time. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but her eyes became misty. It made Podrick extremely nervous so he kept speaking.

"It was clever of you to stab him, my lady. This gash could have been much deeper, but you must have … distracted him with your cloak pin."

Sansa gave a breathy laugh, the tears in her eyes disappearing at once. "It's the first clever thing I've done in … well, in as long as I can remember." Her voice was little more than a scratchy whisper. "Thank you for suggesting it."

"I?" said Podrick, looking wide-eyed into Sansa's face. "But I – how – "

"You said if you were me you would have stabbed him while he slept." Sansa had to pause for a long moment while she coughed, and when she continued her voice was rough. "I realized I had my hand on my cloak pin, and it had come undone. You must have seen it. Were you not giving me a hint? It was very shrewd of you. Are you a knight?"

It was as he expected: Sansa did not remember meeting him at King's Landing. "No, my lady. Still a squire." Sansa's eyes narrowed. "I mean, I am a squire. I was squire to Lord Tyrion and now I serve Lady Brienne."

Recognition crept slowly across Sansa's face – she was still Lord Tyrion's wife, after all – and Podrick felt a flush radiate inside his chest, which would soon turn his cheeks pink. To hide his traitorous face, he turned and nodded in the direction of Brienne, who had at last disentangled herself, red-faced and disheveled, from that outrageous kiss to approach her companions, with an equally red-faced but pleased-looking Jaime on her heels.

"Why is the Kingslayer— ?" Sansa quickly whispered, but then the two were upon them and she stopped.

"Lady Sansa of House Stark," said Brienne, coming to kneel in front of her. She laid Oathkeeper on the ground in front of her. Jaime stood behind her, his own sword at his side. "I am Brienne of Tarth. As I pledged myself to your mother, Lady Catelyn, I now pledge myself to your service and offer you my protection. I will take you home, if that is your wish. I will give my life for yours if it comes to that. I swear it by the old gods and the new."

Sansa's eyes grew wider as Brienne spoke, and then she rose shakily to her feet. Podrick stood at once to steady her, if need be.

"I am sorry," rasped Sansa. "My mother is dead. How can it be that you – " But she could not continue as another coughing fit overtook her.

Brienne waited until Sansa had recovered, then told her quickly how she had come to be in Catelyn Stark's service after the death of Renly. Sansa then gazed meaningfully at Jaime, and Brienne recounted the tale of how their two fates had become entwined at Catelyn's order. She did not tell the young woman about Lady Stoneheart.

"Ser Jaime," said Sansa at last. "You were fighting against my brother Robb when you were captured. Why should I believe that you are here to help me? Why should I believe that any of you – " She began to cough again and seemed angry that she could not speak.

"My lady, my story of redemption is a long and meandering one, and hardly worthy of a campfire tale," said Jaime, "but suffice it to say, I made an oath to Catelyn Stark and I intend to keep it."

"As you've kept all your other oaths, no doubt," said Sansa, raising her chin.

Jaime became somber. "The ones that mattered, yes."

"Are you still of the Kingsguard?"

He hesitated. "That is … doubtful."

"Then to whom have you pledged yourself?"

"Why, to the Lady Brienne, of course."

Brienne shifted on her knees to look behind her at Jaime. He winked at her, though his face remained sober. When she turned back to face Sansa, her cheeks were red.

"You can trust Ser Jaime with your life, as I do," said Brienne seriously. "No one believed in him less than I did, and I have been proven quite wrong. Repeatedly." This last she said almost under her breath.

Sansa was silent for a long while as she regarded the two knights before her. She looked at Podrick as if hoping he had something to add that would make this inexplicable scene make sense to her.

At last she said, "It seems I have no choice but to take you at your word. Lady Brienne – or shall I call you Ser?"

"As you prefer, my lady," said Brienne.

"Lady Brienne, I accept your pledge of service and protection. Ser Jaime, I expect no less from you. And Podrick …"

He looked at Sansa expectantly.

"Thank you." She turned away from them and did not see the grin that spread across Podrick's face.

Brienne stood, and she and Jaime began discussing how they would spend the rest of the night, and what their next steps would be in the morning. Podrick could not hear everything, but the word "Winterfell" rang through the crisp night air several times. While they spoke, Sansa made her way to the trunk of a soldier pine. She reached out for it with her uninjured hand, leaned against it, and slid down until she was on her knees again. Podrick ran to her.

"My lady?"

Sansa was shaking from her hair to her heels.

"Oh," Podrick said. "Oh. My lady."

He looked desperately at Brienne, then at Jaime, but they were too engrossed in discussion to pay him any mind. He looked back at Sansa, who was very pale indeed. He took her cold, shaking hands in his and massaged them. Then when she began to tip to one side, he caught her in his arms. He had heard of ladies fainting from sudden distress, and had seen men suffering from shock after the Battle of the Blackwater. He himself had vomited, after what he'd done there, and then again after rescuing Jaime and Brienne from the Brotherhood. He understood that a person's body sometimes couldn't keep pace with the changes it faced. So he held Sansa, and would continue to hold her, until she woke up.

_**To be continued …**_


	2. Brienne, Part 1

**Brienne**

"My lady, the water is cold."

Brienne stood on the river's shore and watched as Sansa, bent over with her skirts hiked up and her bare feet in the freezing water, scrubbed her head violently with a bar of lye soap she had borrowed from Podrick's pack. For the past three mornings she had washed her hair after breaking her fast and had managed to remove most of the brown dye, but the color had permeated the older, more porous ends of the long strands and was proving difficult to wash out. Now her hair was a curious sunset of auburn bleeding into brown, and her delicate hands were red and angry from the harshness of the soap and the never-ending cold.

They had recovered one of Baelish's horses to add to their three, and they'd scavenged what provisions and food they could, including a too-large pair of fur-lined gloves for Sansa, though her hands remained raw because of her daily determined ministrations. Podrick had taken some clothing from the men they'd killed, too, and had relieved Littlefinger of his boots, a fact which pleased Brienne as the boy seemed to have grown four inches in the short time she'd traveled with him. It was no wonder that Sansa had not recognized Lord Tyrion's squire at first; he must have looked a mere boy to Sansa the last time she'd set eyes on the lad. Now he was a man grown, and getting taller by the day, it seemed.

"My lady?" repeated Brienne, holding out a blanket. "You will fall ill. The water is freezing."

Sansa pretended not to hear her and rubbed her hands together around her hair as it hung beneath the flowing water. She muttered quietly to herself in her raspy, damaged voice, but Brienne couldn't make out the words.

She looked back at Podrick and Jaime breaking camp. The two had learned to work together efficiently without speaking, as men often do, and she sighed, wishing that it could be as easy for women. A splashing sound drew her gaze back to Sansa. She had squeezed the excess water from her hair and was returning to dry land, stomping through the water's edge as if it had offended her. She took the blanket from Brienne with a nod of thanks and wrapped it around her hair and shoulders. Together, the two walked back to where the men waited.

* * *

Podrick tended to the horses and prepared a meager lunch while Sansa sat on the dry grass watching Brienne and Jaime fight. They never missed a day's practice if they could help it because, as much as he had improved, the strength and dexterity of Jaime's left arm and hand would never match his right in battle. Fortunately, his reflexes were quick, and his body knew how to dodge and thrust, advance and retreat instinctively. Brienne became dimly aware of Sansa sitting very still, hands folded in her lap, while she and Jaime danced backward and forward, swinging their heavy wooden swords at each other. Jaime landed a savage blow to Brienne's ribcage that made her retreat quickly, hugging her elbow to the spot; even though they fought in boiled leather, there would be bruises later.

_Focus_, Brienne thought. Jaime was letting her regroup from the blow, though he shouldn't. She took a deep breath in through flared nostrils and centered her vision on her opponent; and as she exhaled slowly through pursed lips, her fear and rage opened up everything on the periphery. She welcomed this beautiful, familiar feeling, of sensing so much all around her, while honing a needle-like focus on the threat facing her. It was reassuring to sense her own greatness and to revel in her body's strength; these were the only times she loved her size and prowess and felt like she owned her gawky body.

She whipped her sword around and brought it crashing onto Jaime's left shoulder, his weakest point. He staggered backward, and she forced herself to continue to advance. _No mercy_, she thought, her mantra in battle. _No mercy_, she had to repeat, for it was Jaime. _Jaime_. His green eyes glinted hard in the flat light of the overcast day. With heaving chest and widened nostrils like those of a starving lion set to pounce, Jaime was terrifying to behold, and a thrill coursed through her loins as she realized that she loved it. Her smile escaped before she could do anything to stop it.

As she swung again, Jaime shifted his weight and thrust directly into the same spot he'd hit before, then slashed upward, point forward, into her armpit, sending a spasm of pain radiating through her whole right torso and into her arm. Brienne cried out and retreated, backstepping into the open space of their small battlefield. How could he be so _strong_?

She tried to lift her sword, but another spasm of pain forced her to lower it and retreat again. "Seven hells!" she spat, trying to raise the sword once more. He must have struck a nerve somehow, for her sluggish arm was not obeying her. "Damn it!" She dropped her sword and stood tall, breathing heavily, as Jaime discarded his own and came to her.

"Are you all right?" he asked, placing his hand on her injured side.

Her dagger was at his throat before he could even raise his eyes to hers. "Never lower your guard, Jaime," she said. "Even for a woman."

A slow smile spread across his face. "I fear it is too late for such remedial lessons. Would that you had been there to teach me when I was a boy."

"You would not have appreciated my … perspective then."

"I fear you are too right." Now he raised his eyes to hers, and she felt the familiar melting deep in her sex. Despite the pressure of her dagger on his skin, Jaime leaned in as if to kiss her, and she lowered the weapon. But while he'd distracted her, he'd raised his own dagger to her throat.

"Ah," said Brienne appreciatively. "Lesson learned."

"At last," he smirked. "You are a slow pupil."

* * *

Later, Brienne rode next to Sansa and tried to rub the sore spot in her ribs, but it was hard to reach through her boiled leather and armor. Much of her days with the Stark girl were spent in silence. It was just as well, for it was too cold for either one to do much except cling to her horse and tuck her cloak more closely around her. And Brienne, never eloquent, was used to being quiet. Besides, Sansa's voice was still recovering, and Brienne wondered if it would ever be the same. She couldn't blame her for wanting to keep mum; perhaps it pained her throat to speak. But today she found herself wishing that the girl would speak more, for the long days of riding brought far too much time to let her thoughts wander to Jaime.

He rode in front, and Brienne would find herself staring at his cloaked back, imagining the way his broad shoulders narrowed to his hips, and remembering how her hands – and the rest of her – thrummed whenever she ran them from his armpits to his buttocks, the better to press his hips closer. They had not disrobed during any of their desperate, silent trysts yet; it was too cold for that, and they had elected not to requisition Baelish's tents so they could continue to travel light and fast. So whenever it was Brienne's watch, Jaime would wake, too, and before long they would be huddled under her furs and groping at each other. It was not safe; someone could attack them in the night and they would have to struggle to throw off the furs and each other to reach their swords. Each night she vowed she would refuse his kisses. Yet each night she hungered for them and accepted them greedily.

Part of her figured she had to take what she could while he still wanted her, for surely this could not last. She was no prize for any man, even one missing a hand and a home.

"Winterfell will need rebuilding." Sansa's voice sounded like dry snow sliding off a tin roof. "Is it true that the wedding party has abandoned it?"

"Yes, my lady. Ramsay Snow has returned home." Brienne looked at the young woman riding by her side, her face hidden by her cloak's hood. "I am told that Lady Arya escaped, thank the gods, but I know not where she is now … if the girl was indeed your sister."

"Arya would never have agreed to such a marriage," rasped Sansa.

Brienne nodded in silence and hoped Sansa was right. She could barely see the girl's shiny, reddened nose peeking from the front of her hood. Her flat affect had not changed since they had rescued her, and Brienne could only wonder if she was still in shock; or perhaps this was merely her personality, or what had become of it since she had been made the pretty pawn of countless others in these endless war games. It was Sansa's curse to be beautiful, just as it was Brienne's to be ugly, and somehow they'd each had to navigate their lives based on others' perceptions of their countenances. It seemed so silly, and she felt an old, familiar anger welling in the pit of her stomach. Without quite realizing it, she touched the dressing on her cheek. Then she frowned at herself for worrying about the wound. It was healing, and that was all that mattered.

She glanced behind her at Podrick. He huddled miserably on his mount, peering occasionally to one side or the other. When she turned back to Sansa, she noticed snowflakes beginning to fall between them. They would have to find shelter soon, for they could not camp in snowfall.

"Who will help me rebuild it?"

"We will, my lady."

Sansa looked at her, not unkindly, but with an expression of general disenchantment. "I am grateful, Lady Brienne, but it will take more than the four of us to restore Winterfell to its former state. Even to a habitable state."

"Your bannermen – "

"Are dead, or wanted as traitors. As am I."

Brienne pressed her lips together and remained quiet for a while. "There are bannerwomen, too, and their children, who would be happy to be given a purpose again."

She prayed this wasn't too hopeful, but Sansa's silence seemed contemplative. There was no sound for a time but the clip-clopping of their horses' hooves on the hard path, and the occasional huff or nicker. Brienne's breath made puffs of vapor in front of her face. The snow fell harder.

"You chose not to remain at Tarth. Why?"

Brienne's brow furrowed. How best to explain her lot to someone who had been born with the form and demeanor of a good lady?

"My father wished me to marry and I did not."

She realized she was staring at Jaime's back again and forced her gaze into the trees. Then she began to try to formulate an answer to the question that would inevitably follow: why on earth would she not wish to marry?

But what Sansa said was, "I understand."

Brienne looked again at her companion, but she had turned her cloaked head away and now looked into the trees on her left. They rode in silence, and Brienne thought. Even with her beauty, perhaps the girl did understand. Life for women bartered off as chattel to the most suitable match must not be easy. Brienne had escaped it with her will, her sword, and her towering ugliness; but if she'd been born pretty, she would at best be the sequestered bride of some ancient, boring lord, and at worst she'd be saddled with a brute or a scoundrel; and then what would her life be like? Who would she be now? She felt ashamed of the simple opinion she had held of the lass, for how could one live through what Sansa had endured and not grow wiser, or jaded? The naïveté of Sansa's youth was long past, just as Brienne's own innocence had fled, of a necessity, at an early age.

"Someone once called me his little bird," said Sansa, still not turning to face Brienne. "Now I sound like an old crow."

Brienne did not know what to say to that.

"May I borrow your dagger?" Sansa had removed her hood and tucked her gloves into her belt. She held out her right hand; the fingers on the other still had a bandage wrapped around them.

Puzzled, Brienne guided her horse closer, slipped her dagger from its sheath, and presented it hilt-first. Sansa took it, grasped a hank of her hair, and began to saw through it with the dagger.

Brienne couldn't help crying out. "My lady!"

Jaime turned back then, and Brienne looked to him for guidance. His eyes widened and he uttered something that sounded like, "Ooof," before he faced forward again. Brienne couldn't blame him for wanting to stay out of this.

She turned back to Sansa.

"Your hair!" she hissed, aghast, not knowing what else to do. It was a glorious auburn from roots to chin, though the brown dye still permeated the rest of the length to varying degrees. Still, it was glossy and lustrous, the kind of hair Brienne could only dream of having; and it seemed a crime for a lady to cut it away. It was almost like watching someone chop off her own finger with a meat cleaver.

"This brown hair is not mine," rasped Sansa, who now hacked away at another handful of hair. Her horse, who was an agreeable sort, continued to amble ahead while Sansa sliced away section after section of her hair. She let every gossamer handful fall into the snow like hundreds of slender flower stems at a wedding.

Brienne was at a loss. She looked behind her at Podrick, who was staring at Sansa as if she were a ghost. He steered his horse around the piles of hair as he passed them. Brienne found that small action hopelessly sweet, though she could not quite say why.

When Sansa was finished she held out the dagger and whispered, "Thank you."

Brienne took it, staring at Sansa's uneven, chin-length hair until the girl raised her hood and replaced her gloves. She then took the horse's reins in hand and said, in a flat rasp, "I want to learn to fight. With my hands and with a sword and a dagger and whatever else you know. Will you teach me?"

Brienne looked ahead of her at Jaime's back, suddenly desperate to see his handsome face, his reassuring and infuriating cocky smile.

What else could she say? "Yes, my lady."

* * *

Night was falling when they found the miller's house. The family had been murdered some time ago and their bodies lay strewn across the frozen earth like abandoned rag dolls. It was impossible to tell which had been the parents and which had been the three grown children, for they looked alike, all black and bloated with a blanket of snow on top. Brienne saw skirts on two of the bodies and tried not to see anything more. The stench was dreadful, but they could not honor the dead with a burial tonight, not with the snow accumulating every hour by inches. Moreover, the ground was too hard to bury the bodies; come sunrise they would have to cover them with stones.

Podrick and Jaime led the horses to the empty barn to rub them down, feed them, and throw blankets over their backs while Sansa and Brienne carried the saddlebags indoors and brought fresh water from the river that bubbled beneath the miller's wheel. Though Brienne's arm had recovered from Jaime's sword thrust, her right side still ached, and she was grateful for the prospect of sleeping indoors and out of the wind that made her shiver with every gust.

The house, as the women entered it, harbored that unsettling quiet of a home grown empty and cold. It was relatively clean, thankfully, though every shelf and drawer had been ransacked. Brienne kicked a tin cup out of her path and saw Sansa startle at the noise as she carried her and Podrick's packs to a small bed in the corner of the room; the bedding in the other corner had been slashed apart. Podrick would sleep on the floor by Sansa's side, Brienne supposed, though she certainly wouldn't judge if they decided to share the bed. She lifted her eyes to a loft accessible by a ladder. Hopefully the mattress was not infested with vermin, for she and Jaime hadn't any other choice. She climbed and deposited their furs on top of the straw ticking and woolen blankets that the home's previous inhabitants would never use again.

When she descended, she retrieved a tinderbox and two squat candles from her pack and lit them, placing them together on a plate on the scrubbed table, and Sansa brought two oil lamps she'd found on the mantel above the stone fireplace. There was fresh, dry wood next to it, and with luck they'd soon have a fire going in the hearth; it was too cold to consider otherwise, though it would be safer not to send smoke into the sky. _Perhaps the bandits and rogues are too cold to be out a-roaming tonight_, Brienne thought wishfully as she washed her hands in a basin of frigid water. Two more bowls sat next to the fire; hopefully they'd have warm water for washing soon enough.

Before long a small fire blazed, and they found a clean pot to hang over it. Brienne was no cook, and during their travels they'd had to make do with minimal food of rather poor variety; but tonight the two managed to peel some potatoes and carrots, slice an onion, and set a stew heating.

The crackle and warmth of the fire were comforting, but Brienne once again found herself wishing that Sansa would speak. Were not women supposed to chatter? She chastised herself as soon as the thought entered her mind, for Sansa hadn't been a typical lady-at-court for a long while. Neither had Brienne. If the lass had once spoken pretty courtesies, Brienne suspected her desire to do so had vanished long ago. And then there was the matter of her wrecked voice.

A sudden realization struck Brienne like a fist to the breastplate: she would have to speak to Sansa. She was a woman, too, after all, and she could not allow her lack of experience with speaking in small pleasantries prevent her from offering some comfort to Lady Catelyn's daughter. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Then she reached into the bottom of her pack and brought out a small box she'd nearly forgotten she had.

"My lady?" she said as she placed her thumb and forefinger inside the nearly empty box. Sansa met her eyes just as Brienne drew her fingers out and smiled. "Salt!"

Sansa suddenly grinned, her clear eyes and straight teeth sparkling in the firelight, and again Brienne could only marvel at the girl's beauty. Even with her boyish, unkempt hair she was a vision, and Brienne felt a certain satisfaction that she was able to tempt a smile from her. Then Sansa laughed, taking the saltbox and tipping the rest of its meager contents into the stew, and Brienne's heart tightened for a moment. Never having known her mother, she often wondered what it was that mothers and daughters did together, what she might have learned from hers. Perhaps it was just this, sharing salt over a cooking pot and finding comfort in each other's company. She would never know, but this would certainly do, she decided.

"When would you like to start learning to defend yourself?" asked Brienne. She did not say _to fight_, for Sansa was too small. But she could defend, she was sure of it.

"Now. Tonight," said Sansa as she stirred the steaming soup with a wooden ladle. "I should have learned long ago, when – " She stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together in a shut-down sort of expression that Brienne thought looked altogether too much like her own.

"It is never too late, my lady," said Brienne. "We will begin tonight. Nothing physical yet, just … talking." She cleared her throat, trying to decide where to begin. "There is much I can tell you."

Sansa brought a wooden chair close to the fire while Brienne found a short footstool; this way they were nearly at eye level with each other. She began by teaching Sansa about the weaknesses that all men have – the groin, the eyes, the throat, the instep – and praised her for seeking out one of those weaknesses in Petyr Baelish, for it had enabled Jaime to find his opening. Sansa's face flushed, perhaps with pride, but Brienne continued and told her how her diminutive size would limit her in some ways but offer advantages in others: men would underestimate her. She stressed the need for extreme physical closeness during a conflict; Sansa would never have the reach or strength to fatally slice and thrust with a sword, but she could bury a dagger with ease.

Just then the door opened and Jaime entered, with Podrick close behind. Eddies of snow and a gust of bitter wind entered with them, and Podrick shut the door quickly and lowered the bar. The two approached the fire, removing their wet cloaks and hanging them on pegs next to the fireplace where they would drip and steam as they began to dry. Then they washed their hands and faces in the basins of water.

Jaime sat on the wooden floor at Brienne's feet and inhaled the savory cooking smells, closing his eyes for a satisfied moment as he unstrapped his golden hand and laid it beside him on the floor. "Hmm, perhaps it was worth freezing our noses off in that barn for this. What's in the pot?"

Brienne told him, and the blood flooded her cheeks as it always did when he turned his eyes to hers. He always made her feel as though she were the only person in the world when he looked at her, no matter how fleeting and seemingly insignificant the glance. Was that his doing, or her own pathetic yearnings? She had no way of knowing, for no one had ever graced her with such glances before. Once again she had the irrational thought that she would never tire of his gaze, and it was followed hastily by the thought that she would be without it soon enough. She was sure of it. Despite this absolute certainty, a hollow, insistent longing pooled between her legs.

"How far to Winterfell?" asked Sansa. She still would not quite meet Jaime's eyes when she spoke, despite Brienne's repeated assurances that they wanted nothing from Sansa but to return her safely to her home and, once there, to help her in any way they could.

"Perhaps another week," he replied, looking at Podrick, who nodded. Pod was the one who carried the maps, and he had developed real skill in reading distances and estimating risk. At least, so far.

Podrick had retrieved four tin bowls and spoons from the cooking pack and now ladled stew into them, passing the first one to Sansa. When the distribution was done and the pot replaced on the hearth, he took his bowl and settled at Sansa's feet, almost mirroring Jaime's position next to Brienne, sitting closer to Sansa than Brienne might have imagined at one time he would have; but the two young people seemed strangely comfortable with each other. They did not speak much, but Brienne noticed Sansa gravitated towards the boy whenever she could when they stopped for rest. She could not blame her. Her only other options for company were the Kingslayer and the strange, towering knighted lady. She knew Sansa did not trust Jaime in the least, but tolerated his presence because she had no choice but to rely on those who had killed her captor. And though her faith in Brienne seemed to be growing, Sansa had been manipulated too many times; surely she had no reason to believe that now would be any different. It was no surprise to Brienne that Sansa should cling hopefully to Podrick, with his earnest face and shy smiles.

The four were silent for a time; the only noises were the sounds of their eating and the crackle and pop of the fire. The hush created by the falling snow outside made every noise within the house seem louder. They each had a second helping of stew, then later passed around a water skin, finally letting their weariness settle into them as night fell.

Jaime placed his bowl on the floor and sighed contentedly, then wrapped his fingers around the back of Brienne's knee. She did not flinch, but her eyes widened and her body responded, low and insistent. Just like his kiss after killing Baelish and his flirtatious defeat of her during today's practice, his fingers squeezing her calf was hardly an appropriate gesture in mixed company; but Brienne was past caring. If she was to be called the Kingslayer's whore, she might as well enjoy some of the fruits of that title. She looked down at Jaime and they smiled at each other, and in that shared moment it was as if there emerged some unspoken agreement, as if they'd somehow declared themselves publicly with the touch of his hand, even though the only witnesses were an awkward squire and a traitor's daughter.

"Something has been troubling me," said Sansa finally to Podrick, who sat more upright as soon as he was addressed. She then turned her gaze toward Brienne, darting her eyes only briefly toward Jaime.

"What is it, my lady?" asked Brienne.

"Podrick told me earlier that you and he were traveling alone, searching for me."

"Indeed we were."

"I do not understand why Ser Jaime abandoned his oath to my mother." Her blue eyes glittered in the firelight, almost boring into Brienne so as not to look at the Kingslayer.

"I had duties in King's Landing, Lady Sansa," said Jaime, removing his hand from Brienne's calf, and there was an edge to his voice. "I entrusted my sword to Brienne so that she – "

"Yes, yes, I know, Brienne and Podrick told me the same," Sansa said, ignoring the thin line of Jaime's mouth as she spoke over him. "What I do not understand is why you decided suddenly to set aside your duties to the war and seek me out once more. Why you reunited with Lady Brienne."

They had rehearsed this excuse and Brienne spoke quickly, feeling a flush surge into her cheeks as she lied. "Ser Jaime and I had communicated by raven and agreed to meet at certain times and places to search for you together."

Sansa watched Podrick, whose eyes fixed on the floor while his cheeks turned quite red. "You are lying, Lady Brienne."

"I – my lady – " Brienne was unused to lying, and even less practiced in defending her lies as truths. She felt the redness deepening in her own cheeks, but still she forged ahead, even knowing already that the argument was lost. "Ser Jaime was determined that we should find you. I had two hands to his one, and we decided – "

"There is something missing from your story," said Sansa hotly, her damaged voice little more than a hiss in the quiet room. "I would hear the whole of it."

Silence confirmed her suspicion. Podrick looked miserable and guilty, as if he'd been the one who had decided not to tell Sansa about Stoneheart, the one who had determined that a letter sent by raven from Winterfell to the Brotherhood would suffice, because Sansa should not see the creature her mother had become.

Sansa stood. "If you truly wish to honor my mother, and to serve me as you say you do, you will tell me."

Jaime stood as well, and Brienne tensed, worrying that the conflict would escalate. But he stepped forward, speaking softly. "Your lady mother is … not dead."

_**To be continued …**_


	3. Brienne, Part 2

**Brienne**

Sansa froze and stared at Jaime. Her mouth worked. "N-not dead?" She swayed for a moment, then seemed to gather herself once more. Brienne and Podrick stood as well, and he placed a hand on Sansa's elbow to steady her.

"Your mother is changed, my lady," said Brienne. "We thought it best to protect you from … from seeing her as she is now. I am sorry if we were misguided."

Sansa looked at Podrick, who merely nodded.

Whatever she had been expecting to hear, this clearly wasn't it. She slumped back into her chair, her face pale and blank. Podrick sank to a knee beside her.

"Tell me," she said to Podrick. He opened his mouth to speak; but when the words proved too strange to utter, he looked to his companions.

Brienne sat on the wooden stool while Jaime remained standing behind her. "When your mother was alive – " Brienne began.

"I thought you said she _was_ alive," said Sansa.

"What I said was that she was not dead," corrected Jaime, not unkindly.

"She is not herself," offered Podrick in a quiet voice, and Sansa searched him with her eyes. "I do not know what she is now. What I mean to say is – I'm sorry, my lady – Lady Catelyn – "

"Is now Lady Stoneheart," finished Brienne for him, "and the apparent leader of a rogue group called the Brotherhood Without Banners."

At Sansa's insistence, Brienne related the whole story as she knew it, how she'd brought Jaime to the Brotherhood to save Podrick's innocent life and how Podrick, in turn, had saved theirs the night before their hanging. Podrick added his part of the tale, recounting how he had watched Ser Hyle Hunt hanged when Brienne had not returned in a timely fashion. He had fully expected to be next, so escape was the only option.

"But Podrick, you hadn't done any wrong!" cried Sansa. "My mother would never have used you as a pawn to capture the Kingslayer!"

"As I said, my lady, she is changed," said Brienne. "The world exists in black and white for her now. Revenge is all, redemption is a lie. A sinner can have no future." As she said this she looked up at Jaime, who watched Sansa carefully.

"Your lady mother is not dead," he said, kneeling next to Brienne, "but neither is she alive. She is somewhere in between, I think. I do not know what magic made her so."

Sansa looked, horrified, from Jaime to Brienne to Podrick. "It is true, my lady," he murmured. "I am sorry."

Sansa stared at him, and her hands twitched as though she wanted to touch him, or strike him. To his credit, he did not balk, but returned her gaze with an open expression. She set her jaw. "I would see her for myself. You will take me to her."

"Lady Sansa – " started Jaime.

"How can I trust any of you if you will not take me to her? This tale is absurd! Magic! Pah!" she cried wildly. "I will see her for myself!"

She made as if to go to the door and out into the snow, but Podrick hurriedly caught her by the elbow and whispered to her. She snarled something back between gritted teeth. He replied, and she stopped pulling away. He dropped his hand and they stared at each other for a few seconds, the air between them fraught with intensity, until Sansa finally nodded. Podrick's brow furrowed and he drew himself up.

The two approached the hearth and he cleared his throat. "Ser Jaime, Ser – Lady Brienne. I shall escort Lady Sansa to the Brotherhood to see her lady mother."

"You will not," said Jaime.

"It is too dangerous," said Brienne at the same time.

"All the same, Podrick and I will leave tomorrow," said Sansa. She leveled her gaze at Brienne. "Unless I am, in fact, your prisoner."

The silence in the room was terrible as the two older knights and the young lady and squire stared at each other. Brienne should have known it would come to this, if Sansa ever learned the truth.

What choice did they have now?

She knelt on the floor, looking up at her lady. "I swore to protect you, Lady Sansa. My place is by your side. I shall escort you."

Jaime groaned and cast his eyes about the room as if he could find someone else there who might take his part. Brienne could not look at him, and so kept her gaze on Sansa's hard expression. At last he sighed heavily. "All right, then. We begin our journey to the Brotherhood on the morrow."

"Thank you, Sers," said Sansa. She stepped aside and crossed to the small bed in the corner to prepare for sleep.

The two knights stared at Podrick, who squirmed.

"I thought you were _my_ squire," said Brienne.

"I – yes, my lady, Ser, I am! I merely – I thought – "

"You followed your conscience," said Jaime. "It is right for a man grown to do so." He turned to the ladder and began his awkward climb. "Though I am not happy about what your conscience told you to do."

Podrick reddened, mouth open, and Brienne could not help but smile at him. "Good night," she said, taking a lamp and climbing the ladder. She and Jaime would leave Podrick to clean up and take the first watch, as he usually did.

There was a small, half-circle window built into the wall of the sleeping loft, a surprising extravagance in such a modest home. Heavy clouds crossed the moon now and again; but the ground, blanketed in snow, was so white that it seemed almost bright inside. A short table stood beneath the window, and Brienne placed the oil lamp on it and looked around. The straw mattress appeared worn but clean, and a few personal items lay scattered about the perimeter: a comb, a broken mirror, an ancient baby's rag doll propped in the corner, an empty chamber pot. The ceiling hung low over their heads, forcing them to stoop to move about and to inspect the ticking upon which they would rest.

There was no sense in lamenting the turn things had taken downstairs, and Sansa did not need to overhear them speaking ill of the woman who had been her mother, so neither talked of it. Instead, Jaime took the broken mirror and sat on the bed. He looked squarely at Brienne. "We need to remove your bandage."

Brienne unconsciously brought her hand to her left cheek.

"It must be healing," he went on. "You change the dressing every day. It may be time to leave it off and let it breathe."

Feeling more vulnerable than she would ever wish to admit, Brienne could not bring herself to speak. But she knew Jaime was right. She had delayed removing the linen for long enough. She had not seen herself in a mirror yet and had been tending her wound by feel, or by letting Podrick be her eyes – but only when Jaime was otherwise occupied. She would avoid looking at Podrick's face whenever he helped her, for she could not bear to see revulsion in his guileless eyes if her face looked as terrible as she feared.

Brienne sank onto the bed beside Jaime and he handed her the shard of mirror. She held it on her lap and fingered the edges delicately, as if it were a knife whose sharpness she could not estimate. Small shuffles and clinks from downstairs told her that Podrick was washing their dinner bowls and spoons, and Brienne tried – unsuccessfully – to place her mind there instead of on what she and Jaime were about to do.

Jaime began to peel away the cloth while she kept her eyes downcast. Neither word nor breath escaped his lips as he removed the linen and set it aside on the table. His fingers found her face and moved from her cheekbone downward over her scarred cheek and onto her jaw and neck.

"Can you feel that?" he asked.

Brienne cleared her throat. "My cheekbone and jaw. Less feeling, in between."

"As I expected."

Somehow Brienne could not bear to see herself in the mirror yet. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to see Jaime's reaction to her disfigurement first, before she passed judgment on herself. Before she could consider otherwise, she looked at him. His gaze did not remain on her ruined cheek, but met her eyes at once. His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set.

"How is it?" she whispered.

Jaime's throat worked. He looked from the wound back to her eyes. "You look even more formidable, my lady." A wry smile started in his eyes and eventually worked its way down to his mouth, which quirked upward in a tight-lipped grin.

Brienne surprised herself with a breathy laugh, though her heart was thundering with dread. _Do it!_ she told herself, and she brought the mirror up.

It was bad, but not worse than she had imagined. She thanked the gods that the wound was smaller than she'd thought it would be. But the scarring was pink and angry, a ragged, mouth-shaped brand. She could see the carvings those horrible teeth had dug down her cheek, like fingernails raked through dirt. Her breathing, already shallow in anticipation of the awfulness she would see, quickened in anger. Yes, she had scars all over her body, wounds she'd earned in battle fairly; but this was her face, her _face_, and Biter had done it purposely to violate her. She might have died if not for Gendry, but now she was saddled with the memory of that foul act for the rest of her days.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she cursed under her breath, for crying would make her eyes swollen and render her ruined face even uglier. Besides, she did not cry, _would_ not cry. She set aside the mirror and cursed again, angry with herself for caring, so late in her life, for her appearance. And then she barked with laughter, realizing she hadn't known what a gift an unmarred face, even hers, had truly been. But she had borne hardship in her life; she could bear this. She _would_ bear it.

While she struggled inwardly, Jaime's eyes followed her every subtle shift in mood; and he seemed to be trying to assess whether he should speak or simply allow Brienne's tide of emotion to roll in and crash wherever it may. His hand had somehow ended up resting upon her knee, and the calm assurance Brienne felt from the weight of it there was comforting. In that simple moment she saw Jaime once again restraining himself from trying to _fix_ her, like nearly every other man she'd known had tried to do. He allowed her to be no more or less than who she was.

And at last she finally understood – knew it from her flushing skin inward into her very bones – that she loved him. She looked away, wondering if she could bear that, too.

Downstairs Podrick had finished cleaning up the dinner things and trod softly to where Sansa lay, probably still wide awake, on her small bed. Brienne heard him spread out a blanket and some furs on the floor. Then the whispering began. She and Jaime raised their eyebrows and smiled at each other.

He put on his sternest voice. "You have the first watch, Podrick, unless you've forgotten."

Then ensued much scrambling and apologies and gathering of sword and wet cloak. Podrick had nearly reached the door when Brienne called out, "You may sit by the fire. Just stay awake and keep the door bolted."

"Yes, my lady. Ser. I won't. Fall asleep, I mean. I'll stay awake."

As Podrick settled into the chair Sansa had vacated, Jaime and Brienne stifled their snickers and crawled under the furs together, and somehow that was the end of any discussion about the scars on Brienne's face.

Her heart pounded; after all, their little roost in this loft was the first place they'd had any semblance of privacy together. She wondered if Jaime kissed her – would he _want_ to kiss her again, now that he'd seen her disfigurement? She batted the thought away – whether she could keep from sighing and moaning as she usually did when they reached for each other while Podrick and Sansa slept. She doubted that Sansa would sleep much tonight, if at all, and she didn't relish the thought of the two downstairs hearing what she and Jaime got up to under their furs. Even so, she knew if he wanted her she wouldn't resist his advances. There was a certain freedom in surrender, she realized. The Kingslayer's whore she was, in name and probably quite soon in deed, and that was that.

As she lay back on the straw mattress, a sharp twinge caused her to hiss in pain. She sat up, rubbing her ribs. Jaime silently rose with her and began, with his one hand, to pull her heavy woolen shirt and linen undergarment over her head. Like an obedient child, she helped him by lifting the other side until she was bare from the waist up except for the fabric binding her chest. Where was her modesty? How soon after she'd met Jaime had it fled? For there was no question that she would let him undress her to view her wounds. The light from the lamp and the bright snow outside gave her nowhere to hide, but she sat up straighter. There would be no shame in this.

Jaime's own hiss escaped his teeth as he saw the purple bruises peeking from under the cotton binding that flattened and protected her small breasts. He untucked the edge and began to unwrap it, with Brienne helping to pass the fabric around her back until she was naked.

She'd always thought that allowing herself to be disrobed by a man was fantasy, something that would never happen in her waking life; or, if it did, it would be part of some humiliating horror she was forced to endure for a man's sport, as when she'd had to don a dress to fight a bear, or worse, if Vargo Hoat and his men had been crueler than they'd been greedy. So she was surprised by how captivated she felt when Jaime's hand passed gently over her bruises, feeling her ribs with his fingertips.

"Take deep breaths in and out," he whispered, bringing his ear to her lips.

She obeyed and he listened, keeping his hand on her ribcage. He must be listening for a rattle, or wheezing, indicating fluid in her lungs from a broken rib; but they both knew her injuries couldn't be as bad as that. Still, she had to acknowledge his thoroughness, and a smile stole across her face as she wondered about his other motives for undressing her. His eyes were downcast, probably inspecting her breasts, and he must feel the thundering of her heartbeat under his hand, which somehow embarrassed her more than being naked did. She looked away and tried to slow her frantic heart by imagining being examined by a maester; but it had been many years since she had submitted to any such prodding, and no maester had ever made her heart flutter like Jaime did. And his ear was right next to her mouth, begging to be kissed.

Jaime sat back and looked her in the eyes, exhaling in relief. "You'll heal," he whispered.

His hand was still on her ribs. She nodded. Of course. She always did. They regarded each other silently. A sweet, sad longing churned deep between her legs. She placed her hand on top of his.

As always, Jaime would begin as a gentleman, or as much of one as he was likely to be. He barely breathed his next words. "Brienne, can you keep quiet if I do this?"

Leaning forward, keeping his eyes open, and pressed his open mouth to hers, and the sudden, throbbing desire in her loins nearly made her whimper. He slid his hand upward until it cupped her breast and he gave it a squeeze, and still, somehow, she didn't make a noise. She reached for his hips, for they were too far away from her aching pelvis and the fire within. But he wouldn't come closer, not yet, for there was her body to explore, at last, and as he pulled back his eyes seemed to feast on it. A small smile crossed his face and he hummed quietly, satisfied, and brought his mouth to her left breast, keeping his hand on the right and running his thumb over her nipple. Brienne's eyes closed, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. His tongue on her nipple seemed somehow larger and yet more precise than it had been inside her mouth a moment ago, and she thought she might pass out from the thrill of it.

Jaime's warm breath made her shiver as he slid his mouth up her breastbone and neck and across her jaw, right underneath her scars. "I want to feel you," he breathed when he reached her mouth again. Grasping the hem of his woolen shirt, he tugged it deftly over his head, and slung it to the side, then reached for the linen shirt underneath, though Brienne had to help a bit with that as it hugged his body more snugly than the wool. Now shirtless, he slid his hand down to her hip and reached behind her with his other arm. He sat up on his knees and pulled her firmly to him, and she felt his need, hard and insistent, between her legs and his muscular chest against her own naked breasts. She moaned.

Jaime stopped kissing her and his green eyes glimmered like emeralds in the lamplight. "Shhh," he breathed into her mouth, but Brienne silenced the reprimand with her tongue. He quickly lowered her onto the mattress and kissed her, grinding his manhood into her through their breeches, over and over again, until she thought she might have to beg him to take her, dignity be damned.

But Jaime had other ideas. Propping himself up on his elbow, he shifted so that his length was pressed into her thigh and he slid his hand down inside her breeches, beneath her smallclothes, until he found her sex. The wet heat he found there made him moan, and he pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes as if he were in a dream. "Shhh," whispered Brienne, and Jaime kissed her to silence her cry as he pressed the warm heel of his hand against her sex and slipped a finger inside her.

Brienne's maidenhead had probably been lost long ago from the physical exertion of riding horseback, and she'd given herself the widow's comfort for years, knowing that no man was likely to give her any pleasure. But when Jaime slipped a second finger inside her and began to rub the nub of her desire with his thumb, her eyes fluttered shut and she surrendered to the knowledge of his hand. He started slowly, rolling her sex under his thumb with the practiced, undeniable rhythm of an ocean wave tumbling over itself to reach the inevitable shore. She turned her head to the side and they lay forehead to forehead as he silently ministered to her need. She bit her lip and furrowed her brow to keep from making a noise, tilting her hips upward to take his fingers in even deeper. Jaime's breath shuddered in and out against her lips and she kissed him, feeling his own unrelenting want against her hip. At last he found the rhythm that she knew would bring her to her inexorable finish. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound as she felt her body's yearning slowly building, building under his touch – and with a rush of exhalation it was released, pulsing and contracting around his fingers. She whimpered, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing the sound. She ran her hands up over his jaw and into his hair, grabbing handfuls of it as she kissed him back, hard, and wondered with a certain amount of giddy wickedness what else this man was capable of doing to her.

Jaime slipped his fingers out of her and sat back, knees spread, and waited. Brienne sat up and unlaced his breeches. He released himself and, with her juices still on his fingers, grasped his length and began to stroke. Brienne could not take her eyes off of him. He must know she'd never touched a man, and in their nights of tussling under the covers, though she'd tentatively squeezed him through his breeches, she hadn't yet reached for his naked manhood. Now, with the lamplight and the white light of the fallen snow making his angular face glow with an ethereal beauty – and despite purple and green bruises all over his shoulders, arms, and torso; despite lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes from too many nights with little sleep; and, yes, despite missing a hand – he looked like a god, beautiful and perfect, perhaps one that the Seven had cast away jealously in punishment for his physical splendor. While Jaime rubbed himself, he kept half-lidded eyes on Brienne as he watched her watching him. She sat up on her elbows and wondered how his manhood could fit into her, but it must be possible, and she knew now that it would happen. Perhaps not tonight – because she didn't want to stop him, not until he'd shown her how best to pleasure him – but soon, soon, she promised herself.

Brienne watched Jaime's movements for a while longer and, finally, drawing on a new sort of courage she hadn't known she possessed, she knelt almost behind him, spreading her thighs around his right thigh and buttock. She pressed her sex into his hip and her breasts into his arm and ribs. She held his left hip with her hand, keeping him close. Then, as she tucked her chin on top of his shoulder – for once glad of her height, for it meant that she could watch – she reached for him with her right hand. He let go and she wrapped her fingers around his girth, thrilling at the soft moan she elicited from him, and at the new sensations of smoothness and rigidity under her fingers; and she began to slide her hand over him, as she'd seen him do. His warm, soft skin moved over the stiffness, and she found herself smiling. She kept at it, slowly, marveling at the wetness she saw gleaming on the tip of his manhood and wondering how soon she'd bring him to climax.

"Faster," he commanded in a rough whisper. She obeyed, and almost immediately she was rewarded by his release. He produced a handkerchief to capture his seed instead of letting it spew onto the bedclothes, and his hips thrust involuntarily as she continued to stroke him. She looked at his face and felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw the utter abandon in his expression; his eyes were closed, his brow knit, his mouth open in a silent sigh of ecstasy. His mutilated arm reached behind him to draw her even closer to him. It seemed right to continue to touch him until his shuddering had completely ceased, and so she waited until he'd turned to kiss her to release him.

Jaime folded the handkerchief neatly and handed it to her, and she gratefully accepted it and cleaned the rest of his seed from her fingers, grinning in what she was certain was a silly manner as she did so. She lowered her gaze, blushing and smiling. He pulled her to him and, placing his finger under her chin, tilted her face to his. He whispered, with a grin, "You've been holding back, my lady." He kissed her again, his hand rough in her hair at the nape of her neck and his breath hot against her mouth. "I cannot wait to try that again."

"You flatter me," said Brienne, still blushing.

"Not at all. Flattery is what one resorts to when the truth is not an option."

"Your moral code is interesting, Ser Jaime." But she kept on grinning like a fool.

"Come and lie down with me, wench," he whispered. And she did.

As they settled down beneath their covers and watched the white flurries through the windowpane, Brienne was grateful for the heat rising from the fireplace downstairs, and glad that they had one night of true shelter before they wound their way back to Lady Stoneheart. Soon Jaime turned his body toward Brienne, and she mirrored his position. His hand found hers and held it.

"We should sleep," whispered Brienne. Jaime nodded.

But they continued to look at each other. Brienne couldn't begin to guess what Jaime was thinking as he gazed at her, but the intensity of his eyes made her feel somehow intriguing, desired, and even a little beautiful. It was confusing, for she had never been any of those things; but she was quickly growing addicted to the feeling that she _might_ be, at least in his eyes. She wanted to talk about what they'd done, and tell him how bloody amazing he had made her feel, and how incredible the act of pleasuring _him_ had felt to her … but somehow she couldn't. It felt almost as if to speak of it would break the spell, and she had no intention of doing that. So she just looked at her lover and prayed to the Seven, all of them, to keep her from driving Jaime away.

"What will we do after Winterfell?" asked Jaime, his gaze dropping for a second to her hand in his; but then he looked into her eyes again. He'd spoken almost casually, as if he were merely making conversation.

But Brienne's heart leapt into her throat, for she wondered the same thing, every day and night. After Winterfell Jaime would return to King's Landing, and she … she wasn't certain where she would go. Perhaps a visit to her father was warranted, though he'd implied that his welcome would be warmest if she happened to bring home a promising candidate for her lord husband. So it would be a cold visit home. After that, she did not know.

But Jaime had said _we_. What will _we_ do after Winterfell?

Brienne surprised herself by giving Jaime the truth. "Whatever you like."

_**To be continued … **_


	4. Sansa

**Sansa**

Sansa didn't care if Podrick did not sleep on the nights that she drew his arm around her waist. As long as his knees were tucked behind hers and his chest pressed warmly against her back, she didn't care if he never slept again. The darkness was the worst, and it was nighttime that she most needed the pressure of Pod's body against hers, for it was in the night that her thoughts drifted to her mother, and she wasn't certain if it was excitement or dread she felt. If her companions were speaking true, her mother was … no longer her mother. The Kingslayer and Lady Brienne had met her when she was alive, so this Lady Stoneheart couldn't be an imposter, could she? Or were her supposed saviors lying? What purpose could a lie like that serve? Sansa could not fathom it, and so her thoughts whirled and bucked as she lay still and blinking with Podrick's arm over her.

She couldn't help being angry with her own body for becoming aroused by the feel of his, by the sensation of this stranger who seemed honorable enough but was still, after all, just a man. Pod was everything she'd once thought a knight should be – unafraid to do what must be done, yet kind to the gentler sex. But though he was all those things now, she knew she couldn't trust him never to frighten her, never to disappoint her. After all, she understood how time and loss could change a person. She knew how it had changed her. Her body had eventually betrayed her with Littlefinger, too, and she hated herself for that, for giving him that satisfaction. But he had never hurt her, oh no – he was too clever for that. For her, calculated kindness was his weapon of choice. He understood how badly she needed it, and he was … persistent. She hoped that she knew better now.

Sansa closed her eyes and tried to go back to a better time, before everything and everyone turned on their heads and she didn't know whom to trust. Podrick's hot breath against the back of her now-bare neck felt almost like she had Lady back again. Lady, who'd slept against her like a mother, or a lover. Lady, who had hurt not a soul and had no one to defend her in her hour of need, not even Sansa's own lord father. Especially him.

She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, trying to force that thought back into the dark where it belonged. But the sun was rising, and she was cold, and she needed to find a tree behind which to relieve herself. She was so tired of having no privacy. It had been far too long since she hadn't been under the watchful eye of someone. And if her companions were more respectful than any of the others had been, they were still constantly _there_. Podrick was less irritating than the others by virtue of having less to say, and so she liked him better for it. He let her be, and it was refreshing.

Podrick sat up, of course, when she did, but she laid a hand on his chest to keep him still. Her breath steamed in front of her face as she found a tree and hiked her skirts. By the time she was done, Lady Brienne had disentangled herself from the Kingslayer's long arm – Sansa wondered who exactly had been on watch in the wee hours before waking – and was off in search of her own tree. Sansa shuddered when she realized that she and Podrick had been mirroring the sleeping position of their cohorts. But no one here seemed to care for propriety, and she couldn't exactly be bothered about it, either. She'd done far worse in the Vale, having been despoiled by her protector and supposed father, and forced to swallow moon tea to escape the consequences of that horrid arrangement. Now, sleeping next to a squire every night seemed but a snowflake in an avalanche.

Podrick grunted, breaking the snow-blanketed hush of early morning, as he tugged on his new boots – Littlefinger's boots, which he'd slipped from the man's feet a short while after the Kingslayer had put an end to him. Sansa didn't like the boots on Podrick. It felt to her as if they would poison him from the toes upward. But that was childish. Still, she turned away … and met the eyes of the Kingslayer.

"Good morning, Lady Sansa," he said, still hoarse from sleep. He rose from his sleeping spot, cleared his throat and hawked, then spat into a bush. Sansa could not believe that she – or anyone – had ever found him handsome. He looked so much like his hateful sister. Besides, he was a man, like the rest. A man who'd murdered a king and started this horrible mess. A man who'd wanted Robb dead. A man who had made certain her father would die. So now he'd rescued her, and perhaps that shifted the balance a bit more in his favor. But there were miles to go before she saw her mother, or whoever she was, and even more before she was home again, and a man could show his true face in many ways, she'd learned.

Still, Brienne seemed honest enough, and kind, if a bit brusque about it. And there were many things Sansa found reassuring about her. The horrid scar on her face, for one, was strangely comforting, as were her crooked teeth. Her masculine strength and form. The way she only spoke when she had something real to say. And her eyes – her eyes were astonishing, and so expressive, and they _seemed_ honest. Sansa sat on a fallen log and marveled as the older woman loomed over Podrick while he prepared a meager meal to break their fast. She towered over the Kingslayer, as well, and that was reassuring, too.

Best of all, she'd been teaching Sansa the art of defense. She seemed so at ease with violence, as if it were nothing personal but simply a way of living. Sansa envied that attitude because, to her, violence was deeply personal, and that made it difficult to hurt someone. Her fear, her damned fear, kept getting in the way, making her timid, keeping her weak.

She imagined Arya, alive, whirling about like a tornado with her little sword, cutting down foes with Nymeria by her side, the two creating a whirlpool of blood and gore around them. She smiled.

"You slept well, my lady?" asked Brienne, with a smile of her own.

Sansa nodded, for the sound of her own voice often made her angry. Many things, she found lately, made her angry. It was as if, now that she was free of Littlefinger, her rage finally had room to declare itself, and it was not a comfortable feeling.

"Shall we begin?"

Sansa nodded again.

Their routine was to complete Sansa's lessons every morning before or after breaking their fast, as the noontime meal was for the two knights to practice together, and then for one of them to spar with Podrick. Sansa would always watch, to see what more she could learn, and she was astounded by how often Brienne, a woman in spite of her size, bested the Kingslayer. Even left-handed and using a wooden sword, he was a terror to watch. But she'd seen how the two of them had dispatched Littlefinger's company with seemingly little effort, and quite often she had the odd thought that, together, there was nothing they couldn't do. They fit together in some bizarre way, and that made Sansa uneasy, though she couldn't have said why.

"Podrick?" called Brienne.

He set down the sacks of hard cheese and dried meat and rushed over, his cheeks flushed. But he met Sansa's eyes today, as he'd been doing more and more often. She graced him with a smile and the redness of his cheeks deepened. But then he smiled back and she was disarmed. His teeth were rather nice. It made his plain face almost handsome, and she was not prepared for that and certainly did not trust it.

While these thoughts flitted through her mind, Podrick grabbed her roughly about the waist, as a drunkard in an inn might do. But Brienne's drills helped Sansa to respond instinctively. She had her hands free, and so she pressed one knuckle into the sensitive muscle of Podrick's jaw, keeping his head steady with her still-bandaged palm against the other side of his head. She felt part of the wounds on her fingers open again, but still she pressed hard.

"Ow!" he cried, backing away from her at once, his hand over his jaw. "What was that?"

The Kingslayer had leaned against a nearby tree to watch and now chuckled softly, and Podrick shot him a look of betrayal. Sansa grinned at her attacker's hangdog look and flexed her wounded fingers, hardly feeling the sting of pain.

"That, Podrick," said Brienne, "was a simple way to keep a harmless man from advancing any further. But what did you forget to do next, Sansa?"

She sighed. "Run away," she rasped.

"Precisely. Put distance between you and your assailant. Perhaps he'll find that you are too much trouble to chase."

"What if he's not harmless?" asked Podrick. "What if he gets angry? My lady," he added quickly, bobbing his head.

Sansa raised her eyebrows at him. "Try it."

Podrick frowned and looked at Brienne, who nodded. He stepped forward, grasping both of Sansa's wrists. Sansa twisted and wrapped her hands around his, quickly trapping one of his hands in a stress position, as Brienne had taught her; but she didn't have a strong enough grip to then force him to his knees, or perhaps she didn't want it badly enough, for he turned his body and slipped free and somehow they were both on the snowy ground. Podrick hovered over her, his hands pinning her wrists at either side of her head. She knew what could happen next, though Podrick would never presume to push her legs apart with his knees. The fear began to roil in her belly and throat then, and, panting, she felt her courage leaving her like water running through a sieve.

"He cannot take what is not his," said Brienne, reciting the mantra again, "unless you allow him."

Both women knew that wasn't exactly the truth, for there were many situations from which a female might not escape. But for the purposes of training, Brienne expected her to break free of every hold Podrick placed upon her.

Sansa ground her jaw. She could do this. Quickly, she raised her hands, sliding her wrists – still within Pod's vise-like grip – upward along the cold, wet ground and turning her head to one side. Podrick wasn't expecting the sudden shift and fell face-forward over her shoulder into the snow. Then she wrapped her left leg around his right, planted her right foot flat on the ground, and _pushed_ with all her might from that hip and foot … and somehow she threw him off of her. She huffed in surprise, frozen for a split second.

"Next!" shouted Brienne.

Still kneeling next to him, Sansa struck Podrick hard in the inner thigh, to simulate a fist to the groin. Then she whipped her wooden practice dagger from her belt and slapped the flat side to his upper chest, to represent stabbing him in the throat. Podrick hadn't had a second to recover. Still breathing hard, Sansa smiled down at him.

"Excellent," said Brienne. The Kingslayer clapped his mismatched hands together slowly, nodding as he did so.

Podrick laughed, a throaty chuckle that somehow felt better to Sansa than her teacher's praise. She laughed, too, her scratchy voice barely audible; but for the first time in a very long while she felt actually happy, and the strangeness of that made her laugh harder. She stood and offered Podrick her hand. He stopped laughing, though he still smiled, and after a moment of looking at her hand he took it and hoisted himself up. He was taller than she was, and his dark hair ruffled in the cold wind, and for a wild second Sansa wanted to kiss him. But she knew that impulse could only be the thrill of her victory speaking to her traitorous body, and it must be ignored; and so she slowly turned and made her way to their small campfire. Podrick plodded along behind her, as usual, but she wasn't sorry when he sat down next to her to break his fast.

* * *

Their day unfolded much the same as many others. Rogues and bandits hadn't waylaid them in a few days, which was a relief to them all. Sansa had noticed that Podrick was becoming more and more confident fighting, and killing when he had to, and she longed for the day when she would be skilled enough to have her own sword. Arya would be so smug, if she could see her now. She often found herself wishing that she could tell Arya how right she was, about everything. Her thoughts flitted one after another to Robb and Bran and little Rickon; to willful Arya; even to Jon, who now seemed more a brother than he'd ever been, or perhaps it was loneliness making him seem so; and finally to her mother and father. Her need for them felt bottomless, and she felt herself spiraling into a dark place. How little she had appreciated the real people in her life, the ones who had wanted her to flourish.

"Are you well, my lady?"

Sansa hadn't realized that she had allowed her horse to fall behind Brienne's, and Podrick had ridden up beside her. Brienne now dropped behind so that Sansa was protected between her and the Kingslayer; usually it was Brienne by her side and Podrick behind.

Sansa nodded and offered a small smile. "Yes, thank you. I was just – " She stopped herself. Did she really want to talk about her sister? About any of them?

Podrick watched her and waited for a few seconds, then turned his gaze forward again. "You – my lady must be thinking of going home," he ventured.

Would sharing the burden lighten it? She let out a breath and nodded.

"I was thinking, my lady, that if Lord Tyrion isn't – I mean, if we find him – if he returns – " Podrick swallowed and furrowed his brow, squinting. "Winterfell is assuredly yours, by your own right, and by the rights of your lord husband. The Iron Throne made it so."

"They can as easily take it away," said Sansa. "We are suspected of killing King Joffrey." _If only I had_, she thought. _I would have died happy, instead of whiling away my pathetic days like a bird in a cage_. "And Lord Tyrion is wanted for the murder of his father."

Sansa could not help casting her eyes forward toward the Kingslayer for, if the rumors were true, Joffrey was his own son. His torso undulated with the movement of his horse, but he gave no sign that he was listening to their conversation.

Podrick frowned. "Ser Jaime says that Lord Tyrion confessed to him that he killed King Joffrey. But I don't – it doesn't seem – Lord Tyrion is wickedly clever, but poison? I cannot believe – "

"He did not kill Joffrey," said Sansa. "This I know."

The Kingslayer tilted his head slightly toward the left. He _was_ listening. No matter; wouldn't Sansa want good news of Arya, if anyone had such a thing?

Podrick's eager expression darkened and he frowned, thinking. "Is there – do you know who actually did it?"

Sansa appreciated that Podrick could not suspect her of such treachery, for all the good it did her. "Petyr Baelish told me the murderer was Lady Olenna Tyrell. I think he might have helped her to do it." When little Robert had finally died in the Vale, it hadn't looked like one of his fits; it had looked like poison. It had looked like Joffrey's death, horrible and ugly. But what could she have done? Hers was a nest of vipers, and there had been no friend to call her own.

"In truth?" exclaimed Podrick, wide-eyed. "Well, then, my lady, all we have to do is – is – "

"Prove it?" said Sansa. "How? And destroy another house in doing so? Start another war?"

"But if we don't – "

"Then we – "

She stopped abruptly, forgetting her own dire prediction when she comprehended that he'd said _we_. Her heart thudded hard and she swallowed, breathing heavily for several seconds as she tried to discard the long-dead hope for a true companion during what would surely be her final trials. She shook her head.

"There is no _we_ – "

"Shhh!" said Jaime, whipping his head to the right and looking up into the hills. Brienne wheeled about in the same direction.

Then the riders were upon them.

* * *

Sansa sat backward on horseback. She was lashed to Podrick, facing him, in his lap with her thighs around his waist and her legs dangling to either side; her arms were tied behind his back and his behind hers. Her skirts had ridden indecently high and the skin beneath her leggings was freezing cold. Though they'd taken their weapons, at least their captors had allowed them their cloaks and gloves. They had to hold each other tightly to keep from being unbalanced and sliding off the horse. Brienne's and the Kingslayer's armor and weapons had been confiscated, as well, and they were tied in the same way. The Kingslayer had laughed bitterly when he and Brienne were bound together, and Brienne had given him a small, sad smile in return. Then they held each other close, whispering to each other until the one with the dirty yellow cloak struck the Kingslayer's leg with the flat of Brienne's sword to shut them up.

"Will you not hear me?" Sansa said again. She looked at Hullen's son Harwin, who turned away. Would no one listen to reason? "These people were escorting me to you! It is what my mother – "

"Quiet, lass," the man with the yellow cloak said. "Your escorts escaped from our camp. Lady Stoneheart will see them hanged. Afterward, she'll deal with you."

"This _lass_ is a highborn lady," said the Kingslayer, "and you'd be well advised to address her as such."

Sansa couldn't help it; affection and gratitude flooded her, and suddenly the Kingslayer – Ser Jaime – looked like a better man than he'd been a moment ago. Why was hope so obstinate a feeling? Would she never be rid of it?

The man with the yellow cloak led his horse closer and smiled a dangerous smile that revealed his rotten teeth. "The Kingslayer is in no position to give me etiquette lessons."

"What is your name?" Jaime asked mildly. "Lady Stoneheart did not grace us with proper introductions at our last meeting, brief though it was."

"They call me Lem. Or Lemoncloak." He shrugged a shoulder to indicate his filthy garment.

"Very good," replied Jaime. "I like to know who I've killed. It's a point of honor for me – "

Lem leaned out and slapped Jaime's face.

"You will not touch him – " began Brienne, nostrils flaring.

"Stop," whispered Jaime to Brienne, before turning a cool stare toward Lem.

Lemoncloak began to laugh, a horrid, hacking sound that made Sansa want to retch. He fell back, still cackling, until he was level with Sansa and Podrick. "Slapping Lannisters is more entertaining than I would've thought. You ought to try it, little lass. You deserve a bit o' justice."

Sansa and Podrick just looked at him. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she could feel Podrick's pent-up energy as he held her tightly.

"I'd like to try it," called the one-eyed man riding behind them. "Them bastard Lannisters killed my brothers. We shoulda had our fun when we had 'em before. But Lady Stoneheart don't go for such. Alive or dead, no messing about in between."

"You'd think killing someone would be enough messing about, Jack," said a longbowman, sniggering.

"I wish Thoros was here," the man called Jack went on, "and not out with half our men 'collecting funds,' as he says. That's not near as much fun as slapping Lannisters. He's missing out, he is."

"All in good time, Jack," said Lem with a glare. "Lady Stoneheart won't be letting these two spend the night in any stable this time. And you," he said, narrowing dangerous eyes at Podrick. "Who would've thought you'd be the one to help those two escape? What's the saying? Still waters are deep waters?"

"What water?" asked Jack. "We didn't camp near no water."

As Lem tried to educate Jack about the concept of proverbs, the man with the longbow led his horse closer to Sansa and Podrick, letting his eyes roam over her legs before trotting past. A listless fear whorled in a hollow pit in her stomach and she wished she'd had a sword when the men had swept down upon them. Could she have helped her comrades at all? Could she have struck even one of those men? Too late, she realized that Podrick, Lady Brienne, and, yes, even Ser Jaime really _had_ had her best interests in mind, for they'd fought violently against the attackers. And Sansa had sat there like a simpleton, frozen on her horse with her mouth open in a silent scream.

Jaime and Brienne kept their eyes on their abductors, though they would be powerless against them. Sansa looked at Podrick, wincing at the bruise forming on his cheekbone and the cut on his lower lip. His eyes darted from captor to captor, perhaps assessing their weaponry; but what could he do? She stared at the stubble on his jaw, watched his throat work as he swallowed. Before she knew what she was doing, she had rested her forehead on his shoulder and was inhaling his warmth, his male scent. She held him closer, felt the muscles of his chest against hers, and dully registered the heat between his legs against her own. A tear dripped unbidden from one eye and she rubbed her face against his rough cloak to make the wetness disappear. This was no time for tears, not now, not after everything. But if these were the sort of men upon whom her mother relied, these men who would treat a Stark lady with such dishonor, what did it say about her mother?

Who, exactly, was Sansa about meet?

As if he'd sensed her worry, Podrick nuzzled aside Sansa's hood, brought his lips to her ear, and spoke quietly, tickling her with warm breath and the low resonance of his voice. "Do not fear, my lady. You will live."

She began to quake, and his bound hands held her tighter. Through her hood she thought she felt his lips on her head, but she could not be sure. "Pod," she said. Her rough voice quavered, though she fought to steady it. She hardly knew what she was saying; all she knew was that she felt horribly alone. "Stay close," she said. "Stay close."

"I will, Sansa – my lady."

* * *

There were more men when they arrived at the camp, and two of them pulled Podrick and Sansa from their mount. Brienne and Jaime were yanked from theirs and they tumbled inelegantly to the ground. Though still bound, they somehow managed to stand up as one, their breath huffing in the same rhythm, making puffs of steam between them like a two-headed dragon. Sansa saw a smooth-faced man who knelt on the ground near a small campfire. He was making a noose, and more rope sat coiled beside him. All of the men looked tired and dirty; some wore dangerous expressions, but some looked as if they didn't care a whit what became of their captives.

It was dusk, and the purple and pink light of the darkening sky looked garish behind the gnarled, black fingers of the tree branches above their heads. There was movement at the edge of the forest, and a terrible hush descended upon the camp as everyone stilled.

Sansa's mouth hung open and she stopped breathing.

If a nightmare could become flesh and come shambling toward her in a tattered cloak, it would have looked like this woman. This was not her mother, this pale, swollen, slashed figure with the dead eyes. This was not the mother who had held Sansa in her arms when she'd been so ill as a child, who had spoon-fed her broth and goat's milk. This was not the lady who had taught Sansa to be courteous, but who had made her laugh at gossip and intrigue traveling north from the Red Keep. This was not the wife who'd made her husband's eyes shine with pride or frustration when she spoke her mind. This was not any real thing at all. She – it – no, it looked like Sansa's mother, but it – she could not be. She could not be.

Sansa's face was wet.

The woman was a few inches away, and Sansa could smell her. It was not her mother. No cloves and nutmeg, no milk and grass and wine. This was damp, and dark places with mushrooms growing; this was the deepest of wells where snakes dwelled. The woman did not look at Sansa in any way a mother looks at her child. She looked at her as one looks at a curiosity for a moment and then turns away. Only she didn't.

Stonheart covered the gaping wound on her neck and croaked something that might have been, "Unbind the girl."

Sansa sobbed, a desperate noise she was incapable of stopping. She clung to Podrick and he to her as the ropes were loosened.

"Step away," Stoneheart ordered.

Sansa shook her head childishly and held onto Podrick as if he were a raft in a stormy ocean. His arms about her were steel bands, crushing her, and she felt a dull sort of gratitude for the suffocation.

"Have pity," Brienne said. "Please – "

"The prisoner will be quiet," said Stoneheart. "Step away, child, so that I may lay eyes on you."

Her mother … her mother had said that, several lifetimes ago, hadn't she? She'd said it when Sansa wore a new gown or braided her hair differently or bemoaned a spot on her face. _Let me lay eyes on you, child_.

With effort, Sansa let her arms fall to her sides and took a shaky step away from Podrick. Her chin quivered and she could not stop it.

Stoneheart's eyes looked like a lamprey's, oily and flat and animal. They passed over Sansa's face, down her body, coming to rest on her left hand. "Show me," she croaked.

Trembling, Sansa undid the dressing and held out her fingers. Stoneheart silently regarded the healing scabs and the fresh, dried blood from a couple of them opening during Sansa's sparring with Podrick.

Stoneheart held up her own hand. Her fingernails were dirty, her palm as pale as a corpse's. The scars from the night Bran had been attacked in his rooms were white. "I have these from defending another of my children," she said.

Sansa's heart thudded in desperation. _So she _does _remember us_, she thought.

"You defended your child?" asked Stoneheart, her cold eyes meeting Sansa's.

Sansa's brow furrowed. "No. No, I have no – "

"Whom were you protecting?"

Sansa's mouth worked. "M-myself."

"Ah." She turned away, the curiosity no longer worth her attention. "These three will be hanged tonight. The girl will stay with us."

"No," said Jaime, his voice a knife in the night. "Do what you will with us, but Lady Sansa wishes to return to Winterfell – "

"Silence!" screeched Stoneheart, and Lem shoved him, forcing both Jaime and Brienne to the ground. With effort, they managed to come to their knees. "You will hang first. Then your woman," she said, pointing a dirty, white finger at Brienne. "The boy last." The pitiless eyes found Podrick.

This was madness. Sansa's only friends in the world, dead? It was as if Lady Stoneheart had cast the players in her mind with no regard to the people behind the characters, as if this were some sort of script she were following and she were a puppet on strings, yammering out death sentences because those were the only lines her puppeteer fed her.

"No," said Sansa, shaking her head. "Please. _Mother_." The word cut her heart in two.

Stoneheart looked at the girl who had been her daughter without pity, without familiarity, but with a sort of possessiveness that froze Sansa to the spot. She felt herself shrinking under that cold gaze, her resolve shriveling … but she had to try.

She stepped forward, gesturing to the comrades behind her. "All three of these – " Sansa somehow felt she should not use her companions' names, lest she fuel Stoneheart's vengeance all the quicker. " – have proven their loyalty to House Stark. They are not who they were. They are loyal to me, and therefore to you."

"Lies," said Stoneheart.

Brienne's voice echoed in Sansa's mind: _He cannot take what is not his, unless you allow him_. Would she let this dead woman murder her only friends?

A spoonful of anger stirred deep in her belly, mixing in with the fear. She felt ill, tremulous, as though her body were about to shake itself into a million pieces. But she spoke quickly. She could pretend to be brave even if her insides shattered.

"They were bringing me to you, and from here they will accompany me to Winterfell." _It is mine. It is mine._ "I will call our bannermen and women. We will restore our family home to its former beauty and power. I will be Queen in the North."

She stopped speaking abruptly and nearly gasped. This thought had never, ever entered her mind. Not once. But to save her companions … to save herself … could she do it?

Lady Stoneheart stepped away and drifted toward the noose maker sitting next to the fire. He looked up at her nervously and held the third noose closer to his chest, as if it would somehow protect him. When she spoke again, her voice was as quiet as a dagger sliding into flesh. "Once there was a boy who wore a crown … "

"My brother – your son – Robb."

" … who would have been king …"

"And I will take up his crown and avenge him."

Lady Stoneheart faltered. She looked back at Jaime as though she were trying to put the pieces together in her mind but they were slipping away, like sand through her fingers. "Something happened to him. To his wolf – "

"Robb has no more need of his direwolf. Nor have I any need of mine. _I_ am the wolf. I will bring justice to all who would subjugate the North, and reward all who stand with us."

"The Kingslayer – !" Stoneheart hissed at Jaime, one hand clawed and grasping, her merciless eyes boring into him. He drew himself up and did not flinch.

" – will be a powerful ally," said Sansa quickly, stepping in front of him. She stared into Stoneheart's eyes, making her face the only thing the woman could see. "He will bring my lord husband Tyrion to my side. I will battle the Iron Throne with two Lannisters at my back. The Iron Throne has betrayed them, and now they are our allies. We will not rest until the North is ours."

Sansa could hardly believe the words spilling from her lips; but the more she spoke, the more she felt that she had the right of it. She felt a hurricane inside her, its screaming, relentless winds thrashing her uncertainties to shreds like leaves against a stone wall.

She could do this, or die trying. At least she'd die for something.

Lady Stoneheart took a step back and turned her head, looking away into the trees. Sansa glanced behind her at Jaime, unsure of what his eyes would tell her; but he met her gaze and nodded.

Brienne, still bound to Jaime, spoke firmly. "I am sworn to Lady Sansa and this I promise: I will give my life for her cause."

"I will stand with Lady Sansa, as well," said Jaime. Brienne shot him a look of astonishment. "I will find my brother," he murmured.

Podrick stepped closer to Sansa. "My place is by Lady Sansa's side. I will protect her with my life."

Sansa watched his face as he stared down the horror in front of him, and something skittish and shy quivered in her heart. She reached out and grasped his fingers with her scarred ones and squeezed. One of her scabs broke and blood flowed afresh between their hands, and he squeezed back, never taking his eyes from Stoneheart's swollen face.

Lady Stoneheart was quiet for a long while, much longer than any person should have been without making some comment during the silence. She turned back and watched Sansa, almost as a fat, blind spider waits in a corner of its web. Sansa forced herself to look back into the woman's dead eyes. She wiped the tears from her face and raised her chin. Catelyn would have been proud. She would have been very proud, indeed.

"I am well pleased," said Lady Stoneheart flatly. "You may use the Lannister men to avenge the Stark name and return us to glory. Be on your way. Unbind them," she said, gesturing to her men. Lem began to protest, but the look she gave him cowed him at once. The longbowman brought out a dagger and cut Jaime's and Brienne's ropes, and they stood behind Sansa. "If I discover that you have lied about your intentions, or failed in bringing them to fulfillment," continued Stoneheart, "we will find all of you and kill you, for you will have brought dishonor to our house."

Sansa felt her heart harden, and she wondered if that was how Stoneheart had earned her name. "You need not fear," she rasped.

"I do not fear," croaked Stoneheart. "I only expect, and prepare. Then I act."

Sansa stilled as she looked into her dead mother's eyes, and she told herself that that small bit of wisdom was something her mother might have offered her someday, had she lived. She felt tears well up again, but she blinked them away.

"Come, Sers. Take our weapons," said Sansa. "Pod, get our horses. We shall leave immediately."

* * *

Pod began his watch in the early hours before dawn. He sat holding his sword in one hand with his arms around his knees; he'd folded a blanket beneath him on the cold ground. They had traveled as far and as fast as they could all night, putting as much distance between themselves and Lady Stoneheart as possible, in case she thought better of her decision to let them go.

Sansa had wept beneath her hood for miles.

Now she could not sleep. Though she was exhausted, she couldn't stop the turning of her mind. When she did this thing, when she took back Winterfell and challenged the Iron Throne, she would be walking to her death. There were not enough people left who could fight for her, and she would surely die. Everyone would die.

And yet, despite her fear and guilt and a growing sense of heavy responsibility, she felt almost relieved. This would be a death of her own choosing, and people would sing songs about her someday, of her courage and her righteousness. She smiled grimly as she sat close to Pod and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"You should be asleep, my lady."

Sansa nodded.

"Daylight will come soon," he mused, yawning. He seemed half asleep as he spoke. "Just you wait. Everything is grey now, but the color will start to show in a few minutes."

She looked at him, surprised by the poetry in his words, and stifled a smile. Then she sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Podrick stiffened, but she didn't care. He would relax eventually.

In the predawn silence, Jaime snored lightly, his face buried between Brienne's shoulder blades. During sleep, Brienne looked almost like the Maiden, or perhaps the Warrior, but fierce and wild instead of merely beautiful or strong, with her angelic pale hair and eyebrows, her full lips slightly parted while she slept soundly.

Sansa and Pod remained quiet together as they waited for the sun and the silence was comfortable. He slipped his arm from his knee and wrapped it around her shoulders. She snuggled closer and tugged his heavy cloak over herself. She thought about her lord father, and about her lord husband Tyrion, and wondered how many lovers they had taken. She thought about Littlefinger, and the Hound, and Cersei. And Robb.

If she could lead her ragtag band of bannermen and women into battle once more, she could take a lover of her own choosing.

Just as Podrick had said it would, the rising sun cloaked the frozen ground in every color, making it sparkle like liquid jewels. Sansa smiled again.

_**To be continued … **_


	5. Jaime, Part 1

**Jaime**

"The structure appears sound," said Jaime, though really he knew little and less about architecture and the soundness thereof. What he did know was that Sansa Stark, returned now to the blackened skeleton of her home, needed some good news.

"It is about to crumble," replied Sansa in a low voice, letting her gaze follow his to the keep.

Or perhaps she needed honesty more than she needed optimism. No matter; that was something Jaime knew better how to provide. He shrugged. "Perhaps it is. We'll find shelter elsewhere."

The Bastard of Bolton's men had repaired parts of the keep, but it still stood a huge, burnt-out shambles. Sansa's eyes shone in the bright morning light as she stared up at the blank windows, and she blinked several times before she turned her face away from the keep and the scrutiny of her companions. She cleared her throat. Although her voice was slowly returning to normal, it would catch every once in a while, the sound cut short as though she'd been struck; but whether that was from lingering damage or from emotion, Jaime couldn't be sure.

While Sansa gazed upon her childhood home Podrick hovered near, as close and silent as a shadow. He knew how to allow a woman her space, Jaime had to give him that. Women couldn't be forced open like stuck doors; if they would open at all, it would be in their own time.

"The guest quarters are not likely to have been sacked as badly as some of the other buildings," said Brienne as she crossed the courtyard from the burned library.

Jaime nodded in approval, and he and Brienne shared a knowing look. He suspected that Sansa would not want to see her old rooms today, anyhow, and certainly not the bedchamber that the Bastard had restored and claimed for his own use after his marriage; it might have been Ned's and Catelyn's own bedchamber, for all Jaime knew. But Sansa had kept her face perfectly blank when they'd ridden through the open gates of her home an hour ago at dawn; whatever she'd felt when she saw the collapsed towers, walls, and bridges, she'd kept it to herself.

As Jaime surveyed the ruins, he saw none of the cold majesty he'd noted during his last visit here; now Winterfell looked as if the overgrown lichyard had extended its reach into the rest of the quarters, strangling everything solid in its creeping roots and vines. He shivered and tugged his cloak closer around his neck. The courtyard was cold and silent in the frosty morning. Despite the sunshine it was early enough that fog still skulked, ghost-like, along the ground. The back of Jaime's neck prickled almost as though he were being watched. Even he, who did not believe in such things, could not but wonder about Stark ghosts. They must seem overwhelming to Sansa.

She led them to the guest house and together the four of them walked through, taking note of which rooms were relatively untouched and which had been too thoroughly sacked. One of these rooms had been Jaime's, when he'd come here with Cersei and Robert and the children; but for the life of him he couldn't remember which one. Everything from that time had somehow blurred itself in his mind, as though it had happened to someone else. He thought of the boy, Bran, and furrowed his brow. It would do no good to dwell on that.

Sansa surveyed each room with cool eyes as she passed through, taking in the comfortable beds and heavy bed curtains, the wooden and upholstered chairs and scrubbed tables, the wardrobes and chests for storing clothing and personal effects, all reminders of the visitors who had flitted in and out of this place like chimney swifts, who perhaps had come to their own bitter ends just as her own kin had, and as Sansa herself would – as they all, most likely, would.

Jaime frowned. After he lost his hand his thoughts, as one might expect, had darkened quite a bit; but since he'd stepped into Winterfell this sunny morning they'd become distinctly morose. But with Brienne standing by his side, he felt the familiar relief that her sturdy frame and clear eyes instilled in him. He missed her when she left him, even for a moment, and though he often wondered what that meant, he didn't think it was necessarily a bad development. His wench was becoming a welcome constant, even if he did not deserve such a thing. Even if he wasn't used to it. His hand found the small of her back and she looked at him, the clarity of her gaze making him feel, as it somehow always did, that he was the best thing she could hope to see.

The room at the end of the building had no exit, save the adjoining room through which they had just passed, and the windows were high above ground.

"Podrick and I will stay here," Sansa said, "and you two can stay next door, in case of marauders. We should all be protected here."

"Or cornered," said Podrick. Sansa looked at him pointedly. "My lady," he added gently, but he managed not to blush. She raised an eyebrow. "Your grace." And here he did, finally, blush.

Sansa smiled and blushed, as well, and she was again the lovely young girl Jaime remembered from before everything had gone sour. If Podrick had done that for her, given Sansa her smile back, he was glad of it. Podrick certainly looked happier, and even if he couldn't have his queen in marriage a man grown needed someone to love, someone to protect, a reason for being.

"Where would you have us sleep?" Sansa asked.

Podrick gestured back to where they had started. "On the opposite side the windows are closer to the ground. If the shutters aren't stuck, we can rely on them for escape. If necessary."

"Very well," said Sansa, and turned on her heel. Podrick followed.

Brienne caught Jaime's eye and grinned. He smiled back and shook his head. They fell in step with each other as they followed the younger pair to the rooms Podrick had indicated. Jaime agreed; with multiple windows as exits, the rooms here would be safer for them, if rogues came prowling in the night.

Podrick placed his and Sansa's packs together in the far room, for they had all done away with any sense of decorum long ago. Jaime couldn't even be bothered to remind Sansa that she was still married to his brother. She knew it, and so did Podrick. It sounded as though she and Tyrion had never been much of a match, anyhow, and Tyrion seldom let his bed remain cold for long. If they found him, he'd likely turn a blind eye to his wife's new lover; after all, Tyrion had always been fond of Podrick, even before the boy had saved his life. Besides, when they challenged the Iron Throne, there would be more pressing worries than who was fucking whom.

Jaime and Brienne laid their saddlebags in the adjoining room. The two chambers were separated by a thick wooden door, which Jaime shut, though he left the door to the hallway open. He looked around.

There was a curtained bed that might be large enough for the two of them if they slept on their sides tucked together, as they usually did, and a wardrobe, if they had anything to put in it. Jaime crossed the room to the window and lifted the bar, opened the shutters, and saw Winterfell's godswood looming in front of him, the gnarled branches of the thick forest of trees stretching sideways almost as if they wanted to reach inside the window and snatch him out. But the snow-covered ground was only a short leap down, as Podrick had noted; so this was a safe room, Jaime supposed.

He closed and barred the window again to keep the cold out, glad to be rid of the sight of the trees' reaching claws. The room itself was surprisingly warm due to the hot springs that ran below the floors and through the walls; the Starks had always been kind to their guests, and Jaime was thankful for the shelter. He thought again about what he'd done to the Stark boy to protect his queen. _The things I did for love_, he thought. He shook his head, trying to expel the ghosts lurking there.

Brienne stood in the doorway and stared out into the hall, a faraway look in her eyes. What was she was thinking when she gazed off like that? He had to admit that it frightened him a bit. He'd seen that look on Cersei's face before, and it never portended anything good for him. Once he'd fallen into the lion's jaws, he never knew when they'd snap shut.

But Brienne was not Cersei, no; once he'd had the sense to really look, he'd come to realize that Brienne _was_ everything that Cersei had merely seemed.

Still, the deep-rooted fear took hold of him and silenced his questions before they reached his lips. So he did what he always did when beleaguered by doubt: he slipped an arm around Brienne's waist, nestling his body behind hers, and felt his manhood respond immediately. He'd grown to love her height, and the way his nose met the nape of her neck when he held her like this. He kissed it with an open mouth, tasted the salt of her sweat.

Brienne squirmed – such a girlish movement, who would have thought? – and returned from wherever she'd been as she twisted around to face him. The prize of her sapphire eyes fixed on his brought Jaime back from his place of dread.

"Do you think our ravens will be answered?" she whispered. Jaime, relieved, could only wonder at her trust in him, for Cersei might have sat on her thoughts for days, or weeks, or never told him at all.

"No," said Jaime. When Brienne furrowed her brow, he continued. " I think the Stark bannermen will come here directly. They will understand Sansa's need and rise to it. That is how things are done in the North."

"I hope you are right."

"Either that or we'll all be killed while we sleep tonight. Perhaps tomorrow."

Brienne slapped his shoulder lightly. Jaime rubbed it, feigning to be wounded, but he let a smile creep up his face. It was true, though, and Brienne knew it. Best to jape around the fear, as he'd always done, for worry would not keep disaster away.

Sansa entered the hallway; she carried an oil lamp. "Pod will prepare our rooms and a meal. I would visit the crypts, and later see the sept and the godswood."

"I shall accompany you, your grace," offered Brienne at once. Jaime took up his sword, as well, and the three left the guest house together.

They passed by the empty armory and guards' hall and entered a small courtyard. The entrance to the crypts stood on the far side. An ancient round fortress crouched on their right. Jaime peered up at the leering gargoyles and was glad that time had erased most of their features, for the lichyard that surrounded the keep was eerie enough. And that broken tower seemed familiar. Was that where he and Cersei …?

"I shall enter alone," said Sansa, crossing the courtyard to the crypts.

"No, your grace" said Brienne. "Men could have entered before the last snowfall. Let us accompany – "

"You," interrupted Sansa. "Only you."

Her expression remained placid, but Jaime knew her affection for him had only improved by the smallest of increments since they had rescued her. He could not erase the past, and her father was dead because of his family. Because of him. Certainly the deaths of the rest of her clan could be blamed on Lannisters in one way or another, if Sansa thought about it, which she probably did, and often. He stepped lightly away, pretending to want a closer look at the guards' hall. The two women silently entered the crypts, Brienne's sword at the ready and Sansa's oil lamp held high. Jaime watched them disappear into the darkness and began to worry for Brienne. If there were bandits inside, she'd need him.

He tried to distract himself while listening for sounds of alarm within the crypts. Looking about, his eyes drew back to the damaged watchtower on the far side of the keep. Something wasn't right; it was too tall, and he couldn't imagine what it looked like inside. No, it was the old round keep, the First Keep, Sansa had called it. That was where he and Cersei had gone to be together, and that was where the boy … where he'd …

Jaime turned away from the keep and stalked around the lichyard, stepping over gravestones leaning this way and that; some lay flat, some were broken, but all had been kicked out of alignment to some degree. The sacking of Winterfell had been thorough. It was cold in the shadow of the First Keep, and Jaime began to feel agitated. Why, today of all days, had the sun decided to come out and irritate him with its damned shadows?

He hunkered down in the snow closer to the crypts and fiddled with his sword hilt. His golden hand glinted dully in the sun, and he tucked it into his armpit, unsure why he did so. A crow landed on the head of one of the keep's gargoyles and watched him with its beady eyes. Jaime sneered at it, then felt a fool and stopped. This was no time to become superstitious, or to revisit all the reckless things he'd done. But if he hadn't pushed the boy …

"Jaime."

Brienne's voice made him start, and he stood at once. He had an overwhelming urge to run to her, but he couldn't show these cursed ghosts that they'd bested him. Still, he was happy to see her coming to his side, her yellow hair blazing bright as a torch in the morning sun. She squinted into the light, and Jaime countered so that the sun was beside both of them.

"The crypts are safe. I thought it best to give Sansa her privacy."

Jaime nodded. Brienne looked quietly miserable, and Jaime wondered what she'd seen down there, or what the tombs had signified for her. Perhaps she missed her own father, or felt the lack of one who could love her for who she was. Whatever Jaime had thought of Eddard Stark, he'd loved his children, including that bastard of his. Even the worst father could recognize that.

Jaime suddenly decided that he would be quite happy to see the end of his time in Winterfell.

"If the Stark bannermen come, fortifications will need to be made," said Brienne, looking at the open North Gate. "And we'll need to train our army, if we're fortunate enough have such a thing."

Jaime snorted.

Brienne looked at him. "Why are you doing this, then, if you don't believe in it?"

"I never said I didn't believe in it," said Jaime. "Sansa's cause is the most just one I could hope to support. I don't believe it will _work_."

Brienne looked at him for a long moment. Then she sighed. "You're right, of course."

"Why are _you_ doing it? And don't say, 'For Lady Catelyn,' because she's dead."

Brienne turned away and looked at the entrance to the crypts. Her chin wrinkled as she thought, chewing on the inside of her lower lip. Finally she said, in a rush, "Because the world is ending and I want to be on the right side, and I don't know which side that is. My father would call what we're doing a 'side bet.' I think it's the most correct decision I could make, all things considered."

Jaime stared at Brienne, and she returned his gaze and shrugged. She looked so sweetly forlorn that he couldn't help but snicker. She scowled at him, which made him snigger all the more. She crossed her arms and watched his shoulders shaking, apparently hoping to wait out his mirth; but finally her impatience gave way to resignation and she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling, her beautiful, imperfect teeth glinting in the sun like a lion's. He chuckled harder. How she was able to make him laugh so with her honesty? Her earnestness? Why was his laughter never disdainful but delighted? Even Brienne no longer believed he was laughing at her expense, but she still could not fathom what about her speech tickled him. He couldn't tell her that it was simply _her_, that in this whole, spoiled world there was one person who had somehow remained good, and thought him so, too. He was a sinner with fine prospects, indeed, and he was happy for it.

He was still chuckling when Sansa emerged, red-eyed, from the crypts. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and glared daggers at Jaime, who tried to compose himself, but not quickly enough. He turned his back to her and took a few steps away, taking steadying breaths as he went until he appeared appropriately subdued once more.

Sansa crossed to the lichyard and began to look around. Jaime remembered someone saying the Starks had buried their most faithful servants here. An old woman had watched over the Stark children, hadn't she? Was it her grave Sansa sought? She wove through the toppled and broken gravestones slowly, peering at the inscriptions as she went.

Brienne and Jaime kicked away some snow and sat together on one of the low steps leading into the First Keep.

"We need your brother," said Brienne in a low voice. "We should talk about how we will find him."

"We won't," said Jaime.

Brienne looked at him sharply.

"Tyrion will find us. Wherever he is, if he's alive, news of our challenging the Iron Throne will reach his ears faster than quicksilver. We could never hope to locate him, for he might be anywhere. Besides, we cannot abandon Sansa to search for him. She needs all the warriors she can muster. If Tyrion wishes to join us, he will come to us. That's how we will find him."

He'd come to this dismal conclusion after they had left Lady Stoneheart's camp, but his gut still churned at the thought of having to wait for Tyrion to decide to come to them. To him. And what should he expect, after what he'd said to his brother at their last meeting? He should have kept his foolish mouth shut; Jaime's truth had stung Tyrion far worse than Tyrion's had Jaime, in the end. And Tyrion's barbs had done him a favor, truth be told; they'd shoved him out of the asp's nest for good, at last. But as with every good deed Jaime had tried to do, his words meted out everlasting punishment.

As if she'd read his thoughts, Brienne laid a hand on his knee. "Tyrion will come. He bears no loyalty to the Iron Throne. Here, a home waits for him, and family, a reward beyond riches. We will defend him as he defends us."

Jaime smiled wryly. "We'll all die together."

She smiled back, ran her fingers down his cheek, and the boldness of her gesture pleased him even if it did not reassure him. "Perhaps. We've been known to survive before, though, haven't we?"

Jaime turned his face into the palm of her hand and kissed it.

"Where is she?" muttered Sansa. She'd swept up her sodden skirts and now darted from one stone marker to the next, though she must have read each one already. "Where is she? She's supposed to be here!"

Brienne and Jaime stood as one, and she approached the distraught girl. "Your grace, may I assist – "

"Here!" screeched Sansa. "Father said he'd bring her _here_, so that Cersei wouldn't have her pelt! He said he'd do it!"

At a loss, Brienne looked back at Jaime, and realization hit him hard in the chest. "Her direwolf," he murmured. "Cersei forced her father to kill it … "

Sansa sank to her knees in the snow and looked around bleakly. Brienne ran to her and enveloped her in her long arms, and Sansa crumpled into them, looking vulnerable and lost and very much like the young girl she was, in truth. Jaime started to walk away to leave the women alone … but then he stopped and turned himself around again. He did not approach, but watched them from a distance. Brienne spoke soothing words – she'd somehow figured out how to do that, since they'd found Sansa: perhaps the grave hadn't been marked, or maybe someone had thrown the gravestone into the rubble of the keep or into the godswood, but her father surely had kept his word, the direwolf was buried there, she should have no fear, her father loved her, she was his precious girl.

Jaime's eyes prickled, but still he watched.

* * *

They took their noonday meal seated together at the small table in Sansa's guest room, Podrick having decided to keep their supplies close at hand until Winterfell was better fortified. Jaime was pleased to see the lad becoming more comfortable making decisions on his own, and to see Sansa's trust in him. He didn't know what Petyr Baelish had done to the girl; but, men being men, he had his suspicions. If Sansa was falling in love with Podrick, Jaime couldn't imagine a more honorable fellow to keep her safe.

With a fire crackling in the hearth and hot waters coursing through the walls and beneath the floors, it was a relief not to feel chilled to the bone. And the hot food was pleasing, if not entirely filling. Being indoors for the foreseeable future made Jaime reflect on the finer comforts he'd come to take for granted – servants, a full meal, a goblet of wine, clean clothes, baths. As Jaime swallowed a bite of rabbit stew, his mind wandered back to Casterly Rock and the way the sea had thundered beneath the floors there. When he was a child, it had sounded to him like a great lion lived under his house, roaring and threatening anyone who would wish him harm. How many years had it taken him to realize that there was no lion, that the roaring was just that, a noise and nothing more?

The Starks' water was as silent as the stones it heated, but it benefited everyone within its walls. Why had the Starks ever left this place? Why had Jaime left his home? What good had any of their wanderings ever done anyone?

But if he hadn't wandered, if he hadn't ruined so many things, he'd never have met Brienne.

He realized he was staring at her during his ruminations and quickly dropped his gaze into his bowl. He didn't want to be without her, if they survived this; lately, that fact was the one thing about which he was certain. His heart suddenly lurched in a way it hadn't done in years, when he realized that he'd already made up his mind about Brienne the Beauty. It felt strange, admitting it to himself, after so many years of believing his fate was forever tied to Cersei. How long would it take him to admit it to Brienne? And would she even want him, crippled warrior that he was? A lord who'd effectively forfeited any right to his own home? Lannister or no, he was still just a knight who'd killed one king and betrayed another and who was, even now, preparing to stand against his own royal son for the North.

It was a fine mess he'd managed to step into, over his years of bungling everything he'd tried to do right; but somehow he couldn't regret being here. This barren, haunted place felt like home … or perhaps it was his companions who made it seem so.

No. It was Brienne.

He realized he was staring at her again, but this time he didn't lower his gaze. She looked up and smiled at him, and his own smile in return was as involuntary as a child's. How could he have ever thought her ugly? Scar be damned, hers was the most agreeable face in the world to him now.

After they had supped Jaime and Brienne donned their boiled leather, retrieved their steel and practice swords, and the four wandered about Winterfell, noting which repairs should be made at once and which could wait. Soon they found themselves between the keep and the great hall. Sansa kept her eyes resolutely away from the blank, staring windows of the keep and strode directly to the sept, Podrick trailing a step behind; but as they approached the door, he drew his sword and entered first.

In the open courtyard, Brienne turned toward Jaime. Without a word, they laid aside their scabbards and steel and raised their wooden practice swords. Soon the crisp afternoon air was punctuated by the hollow clunking of wood upon wood and the soft stamping of boots through snow and mud as the two advanced and retreated, dancing around each other as their swords roughly kissed and kissed again.

Oh, but Jaime loved this, and Brienne's skill in swordplay was unmatched. She'd grown ever more clever in her fighting since they had begun so many weeks ago, the day after Podrick had rescued them in the middle of the night from the barn and Lady Stoneheart's judgment. Jaime's skill with his left arm had improved, as well, though he still had to rely more now on his savagery and unpredictability, as the strength and precision of his left would never match his right. Brienne, for all her size and force, was a whirlwind, hailing blows down on him until he was forced to retreat again, laughing. He adored her satisfied smirks when she outdid him; he wanted thrust her against the nearest wall and kiss that smirking mouth until she begged him to take her.

But that was for another day, and there was more fighting to be done in the meantime, and so Jaime lunged forward and lashed out, forcing Brienne to leap backward. Now that she was off-balance he took full advantage, raining slashes from above, which she parried again and again. But then she stumbled on something under the snow, perhaps a root or a stone, and fell back into the white drifts, panting, her blue eyes wide as she looked up at her conqueror. Jaime dropped his weapon and was about to lower himself onto her when she lazily raised her sword to his throat.

"Will you never learn?" she chided breathlessly, her eyes twinkling.

Jaime laughed. "Put that damned thing down, woman."

She did, and he covered her body with his and kissed her while the snow steamed all around their hot skin.

They wouldn't have much time, he knew; but Brienne was always agreeable to any sort of tryst, no matter how brief or incomplete, and he'd needed to kiss her, to feel her solid body against his, since they'd set foot in this desolate, ghost-ridden place. And she was so responsive, her body clamoring for his in ways that Cersei's never had. Blinded by his twin's beauty, he had never suspected there might be anything better than a full bosom, cascading golden hair, a prettily pouting mouth. But now he had Brienne, a most surprising match for him under the bedclothes as well as on the field.

But though she'd satisfied him in almost every way a woman can satisfy a man, and though he'd never say so, he was growing impatient. He wanted to fuck her, to take her maidenhead in every position he could think of, and to let her have him in any way she wanted. He was sick of feeling solitary. Hands and mouths were not enough anymore; he wanted the complete merge of her body with his, and his with hers, and the subsequent mental peace that only such a union would bring him. But he wouldn't push her. With his past sins of flesh and steel as common knowledge, it was a miracle he hadn't frightened the honorable Brienne of Tarth away already.

She didn't seem afraid of him now, though. Her body arched into his, meeting his manhood enthusiastically as their pelvises ground together. He'd just grasped a handful of her arse when Podrick and Sansa emerged from the sept. He removed his lips from Brienne's and looked up, managing to suppress a huff of frustration when he caught Sansa's disapproving expression for the second time today. He stood and offered Brienne his hand, and she hoisted herself up, shooting him a private smile before she turned to face her queen.

_**To be continued …**_


	6. Jaime, Part 2

_**A/N: **__Here is the FINAL CHAPTER. It's been a lot of fun exploring these characters through the wishful thinking of this story, and I hope you've liked it, too. Thank you for reading!_

**Jaime, Part 2**

The bright afternoon slowly melted into a somber dusk, and the four finished taking stock of Winterfell's defenses. Sansa listened well to her battle-worn companions, and particularly to Jaime, who knew more than the others about warfare and therefore which walls and gates would be easiest for foes to attack. Daylight waning, they walked together into the godswood. Jaime looked longingly at the warm pools that sat beneath the windows of the guest house, but Sansa wanted to visit the heart tree.

His unsettled feeling and the plaguing thoughts of the Stark boy had faded after this morning, but now as he moved toward the tree he felt uneasy again. A godswood at dusk was a dismal and eerie place during the best of circumstances, but the weirwood's face really did look as though it had been weeping for a thousand years and more. He much preferred the sensible Seven, carved out of ordinary wood, wood that never wept or did anything remotely human. Sansa knelt quietly at the foot of the heart tree, folded her hands on her skirts, and closed her eyes. Podrick stood a polite distance away, stealing glances at her every now and then. Together, through snow halfway up their boots, Jaime and Brienne made a slow march around the pool and tree.

With the sun going down, the air had become distinctly chillier. Gooseflesh rose on Jaime's arms beneath his linen and woolen shirts, boiled leather, and cloak. Even the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He told himself again that there were no such things as ghosts; but even so he felt the heart tree's eyes following him, its mouth open as though it wished to speak. A breeze shook the blood-red leaves on its branches … and Jaime's heart began to palpitate.

His hand found his sword hilt at once. Brienne looked at him curiously but said nothing. He pressed his lips together and tried to slow the racing of his pulse; but there it was, the feeling he'd learned not to ignore: the feeling of being watched. He scanned the trees but saw no threat. Still, the feeling intensified, and he spun in a circle, trying to see what he hadn't seen before.

Someone was nearby. Someone … no, something … something _other_. His skin crawled and his stomach roiled, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to yell out. It was insane, but it seemed as though something wanted to hurt him. Something immense and ancient and far more powerful than he.

His sword was out before he knew what he was doing, and he flexed his knees, circling slowly, eyes darting all around him. He was dimly aware of Brienne catching Podrick's eye, and the lad took a step toward them as she found her sword hilt.

"What is it?" she whispered, now looking around as well.

Why would she not draw? Could she not sense something was wrong?

Jaime looked at the heart tree. Beneath it, Sansa's hair ruffled in the breeze, her shorn auburn locks twisting like the tree's crimson leaves. Her eyes remained closed, though, and she seemed strangely at peace under the sheltering arms of the weirwood, unaware of whatever silent menace Jaime sensed.

Finally Brienne drew her sword and countered with her back to his. The two of them circled together, their feet stepping in the same natural rhythm, and Jaime was certain the enemy would show itself, or flee. But it didn't. And Brienne didn't see it, didn't sense it. After a time, she lowered her sword and came around to face him, a worried question in her eyes.

He had the horrifying sense that the thing, whatever it was, only wanted _him_.

He backed away from her and raised his sword, balancing the blade over his right forearm as he tried to see deeper into the forest. His golden hand, nicked and dull and in need of polishing, seemed out of place here in the fecund twilight of the godswood. This was a place of wood and iron, of water and wool, of leaves and flesh, no place for gold or jewels or anything that stood for the significance of men.

There was no voice, but Jaime heard something in his brain, something indecipherable. He whirled about to face … nothing.

He spun again, heart galloping in his chest. Nothing. No one.

The craggy tree branches above loomed darkly in sharp relief against the orange and purple light of the setting sun. It was too quiet. The wind stopped.

And then unspoken words wove their way through his mind.

He shook his head, but the whispering went on, splitting his skull like the Smith's nails. A hiss, a murmur, a shout. The voice sounded like everything and nothing, like one person, like all of them.

"Show yourself!" he spat into the chill air, wheeling around at emptiness.

A mouth shrieked silently. Bloody eyes froze him mid-step.

The heart tree.

It was the heart tree, it had to be, even though some part of him knew that was madness. He was going mad.

At Jaime's shout, Sansa's eyes flew open and she came to her feet next to the weirwood, steadying herself against it with one pale hand.

The eyes still wept, the mouth still gaped, but it spoke, it spoke, though the lips did not move, though the words were incomprehensible.

Jaime sank into a terrified stupor. Never had such waves of dread and doom threatened to topple him. He trembled. His stomach clenched. His pulse pounded in his ears and he thought he heard the surge of the ocean, somehow. The blade in his hand shook and he had no choice but to lower it before he dropped the damned thing.

"Jaime," said Brienne firmly, stepping in front of him. He sidestepped her so he could keep the tree in sight, for all the good it would do him. How did one fight a tree, or a ghost, or one's own insanity, for that matter?

Cold sweat on the back of his neck made him shiver. His hand felt suddenly clammy, and the sword slipped out of it into the snow.

"Jaime!" Brienne placed her hand on his jaw and turned him to face her. He saw the alarm in her clear eyes, he did; but those other eyes, the red ones, were so much more insistent. He stepped around her to face them.

"I'm not leaving," Jaime hissed. He wouldn't be cowed by a damned tree, no matter how malevolent. Defenseless, he approached the weirwood and Sansa, who now stood in front of the trunk almost as though she were protecting it. "My place is _here_."

Something gripped his heart and squeezed. Unthinking, he moved to clutch his chest with his golden hand; but the rigid fingers wouldn't soothe his strange ache.

"Ser Jaime?" said Sansa.

The grip around his heart tightened, and he began to hyperventilate. At this rate, he'd have to sit down before he fainted, and a Lannister did not faint.

He drew himself up.

"I have pledged myself to – to – "

To whom? Only to Brienne, and he hadn't even knelt. He'd said it flippantly, invoking no gods, and even though he'd meant it, how was anyone to know? And to Sansa he'd said nothing, made no pledge. He'd said he would stand with her, but what did that mean, to her, to anyone?

He began to unstrap his golden hand, making the decision he should have made long ago, when he first knew.

He had no home. His place was here. This was his family now.

He knelt, feeling the eyes of the heart tree on his scalp as he laid the golden hand at Sansa's feet, and when he spoke, it was as easy as falling.

"Before the old gods and the new, Queen Sansa, I pledge myself to your service. I will give my life for you, if it comes to that. Any wealth I have is yours to do with as you wish, for the Lannisters owe your family a great debt." He swallowed. "_I_ owe you a great debt. If this is agreeable to you, I will remain your willing servant for as long as you have need of me."

When Jaime stopped speaking, the grip around his heart released, and he breathed again.

A slow-building relief carried his fear away like ashes in the wind. He wanted to lie down and sleep. He wanted to laugh. He steadied himself on the ground with his hand and felt tears prickle behind his eyes. _No weeping_, he reminded himself, clenching his jaw. _There's a limit to everything_. But the reprieve he felt was close to divine.

How had he come so far from home, only to find himself again? Only the gods knew.

Jaime's companions were utterly quiet, and Sansa stood still as stone in front of him. He kept his eyes on the snow, observing how the dying light reflected off the glittering whiteness and imbued it with color, somehow – orange and blue and purple and red. He'd never noticed that before. Did all snow behave this way? Was there such beauty to be found even in winter?

Brienne's boots crunched through the snow and stopped next to his crouching form. He smiled and, still not looking up from the snow, wrapped his fingers around the back of her calf. He would wait politely for Sansa's response, but Brienne was _his_.

The sound of someone clapping broke the silence, and their heads whipped toward the wooden gate. A small man with a longbow slung over his back stood a short distance away, smiling and nodding. A two-pronged fisherman's spear, its handle thrust into the earth, towered over him.

"O-ho! The Kingslayer! Never thought I'd see the day," he said, still applauding.

For such a short fellow, his voice boomed like thunder through the cold evening, and his dark eyes were intelligent. He pulled up his spear and approached, boots of soft leather making his gait quiet and smooth; it was no wonder they had not heard him enter the godswood.

The intruder's words belied his friendly smile. "So the lion bows at last to the wolf."

Jaime realized too late that his sword was on the ground behind him. He quickly retrieved it while Brienne raised hers and Podrick drew his, but Sansa quickly said, "This is one of my father's bannermen. He bears the sigil of Greywater Watch."

Jaime then noticed the iron clasp, in the shape of a lizard-lion, which fastened the man's dark green cloak.

"Howland Reed," the man said. "Of the Neck."

Jaime's eyes narrowed and he kept his sword at the ready. _This_ was Howland Reed? This unassuming little man? He knew the Crannogmen were small, and Tyrion had shown him repeatedly how even a little man can do great things, but this one couldn't have cut down the Sword of the Morning.

Sansa introduced her companions properly and Podrick and Brienne sheathed their swords at her urging. Although Reed made no movement to draw nearer, Brienne kept her hand on her sword hilt and Jaime still would not sheathe his. Sansa laid a hand on his arm. "He was my father's friend," she whispered, her eyes piercing his.

She was his queen. He would have to learn to obey. He replaced his sword in its scabbard.

"You killed Ser Arthur Dayne," said Jaime. Until he'd met Brienne, he'd never seen an equal to the Sword of the Morning. And this man had put an end to him?

Reed's eyes bore into Jaime's. "He was a brave man. But sometimes brave men must die for the greater good."

Jaime had heard all this before, even from admirers of Ser Arthur, so he ignored it. "He knighted me."

"Ah, well." Reed scratched his head, mussing his dark hair further. "He must have seen something good in you."

Jaime watched Reed, wondering how his slender wrists could wield even the narrow spear he carried.

At fifteen, the world had been at Jaime's feet; he'd known in the core of his being that there was no trouble too great for him, nothing he couldn't overcome. He was potent, immortal, with an equally powerful young woman by his side, secretly urging him on. Dayne had seen the boy's worth, his unsurpassed confidence, and had offered Jaime an identity his own father would never have deigned to give him.

And Reed had cut Ser Arthur down.

"Do you accept Ser Jaime's pledge, Lady Sansa?" asked Reed quietly, not taking his eyes off Jaime. "Or should I say, my queen?"

"I do," she answered.

Jaime looked at her then, and something passed between them. It might have been a grudging acceptance, perhaps even forgiveness, though Jaime wouldn't have expected or desired it. But the air that separated the two seemed clearer somehow. Jaime nodded, and Sansa gave a curt nod in return.

Reed chuckled and shook his head as though he'd never witnessed anything stranger. Finally he said, "From where I stood, it sounded like you sensed something we didn't." He shared a knowing smile with Jaime, who faced him warily. "My son sees things from time to time. It's no blessing, let me tell you that. Are you a greenseer, Ser Jaime?"

Jaime stared at him, struck dumb for a second or two. "_No_, I'm not a _greenseer_."

Podrick snickered, but stopped when Jaime glared at him.

"Well, that's good, I suppose," said Reed, raising a dark eyebrow. "The sight has its uses, Jojen told me, but it's not always reassuring. I wouldn't want it, myself."

"I don't have it," said Jaime.

"Good on you, then," said Reed.

A sudden grin revealed a mouthful of good teeth and transformed his sharp, shrewd angles into a visage of simple, cheery familiarity. Jaime began to wonder what other skills this diminutive man might possess, besides the ability to murder the best knight in recent memory. He decided to tread carefully.

"You received our raven?" asked Sansa.

Reed faced her and his expression softened. "Yes, your grace. And I am here to offer our protection. No one will pass the Neck without our leave, or our deaths."

"You are very kind, my lord," said Sansa. She appeared somewhat dazed, perhaps afraid to be too gladdened by the good news.

"Why do you travel alone, Lord Howland?" asked Brienne. Jaime knew that tone, and it meant she was still suspicious. He was about to ask the same question.

Reed looked up at Brienne approvingly. "It's well you should ask, Lady Brienne, for there are many who wouldn't wish for more war in times like these, and would do anything to stop it. Even some of your Northmen." His eyes flickered toward Sansa. "No, I'm headed to the Wall, myself, seeking the Lord Commander, in fact."

"J-Jon?" sputtered Sansa, her cheeks growing pale.

Reed moved no closer to her, but it seemed that his next words were directed to Sansa alone. "He needs to come south."

"But he took the black," she said, confused.

"So he did, so he did, with your father's blessing, indeed. But there are colors greater than black," he said with a heaviness in his voice, "and a time to take off every cloak." This last he said to Jaime.

"I've never been fond of riddles," said Jaime, "so if you have something to say – "

"Lord Howland," interrupted Sansa, stepping forward, "we would be honored if you would sup with us, and rest here for as long as you wish. Our larders are meager, but we would share what we have gladly."

"You honor me, your grace," said Reed, bowing slightly. His eyes swept over Jaime once, just before Podrick and Sansa led him to the guest quarters. Jaime and Brienne followed, sharing a wary glance between them.

* * *

While Podrick prepared the evening meal Sansa chose a room for her bannerman, then left him alone to rest before supper. Sansa then went to talk with Podrick while he worked. Jaime and Brienne retired to their room for a few minutes to wash as best they could over the basin, then don the cleanest clothes they had in their packs, which were still unspeakably grimy, despite a recent washing Podrick had done for them.

As he splashed water onto his face, Jaime reflected that it was almost unsettling how quickly the terror he had felt in the godswood had subsided, as if the same entity that had engendered the fear had then removed it, as easily as a maester might remove a chancre. In its place now sat a peacefulness Jaime hadn't known since … well, had he ever known peace? All his family's wealth and privilege hadn't afforded him that. Not that he would ever complain about wealth and privilege; he wasn't an idiot. But a quiet state of mind, that was worth more than all the riches of Casterly Rock. As Brienne helped Jaime on with his woolen shirt, he breathed in the calm silence that seemed to surround her whenever they were alone together and smiled to himself.

Later, when they had all settled together in Sansa's room over their small plates of roasted quail, potatoes, and turnip greens, she and Reed chatted about her family. Jaime's golden hand lay on a table next to the bed, looking dull and used. It was strange seeing it there, but somehow Jaime didn't feel the lack of it. He supposed someday he'd have a wooden one made. It would be lighter and less ostentatious, certainly, and would help protect his stump during battle. But for now he felt fine without any such adornment.

Podrick continued to play servant to all of them, but when he wasn't fetching necessities he sat at Sansa's right hand, taking his meal with them all, as usual. If Reed took note of the arrangement, he said nothing. Jaime would have to remember to discuss with Brienne the possibility of knighting the young man, and soon, for queens simply did not have squires so publicly attentive. A knight would still raise eyebrows, though perhaps not as many. And Podrick had proved his mettle, after all.

He knew they'd been friends, but Jaime was nevertheless surprised to see the depth of affection in Reed's eyes when he spoke of Ned Stark; and Sansa's typical cool demeanor dissolved into one of rapt attention as she listened and questioned her guest in return. Jaime remained guarded in Reed's presence, and was glad to see that Brienne was not so easily won by the little man's witty banter and flashing dark eyes.

Was Lord Howland _flirting_ with her?

It seemed absurd, and normally Jaime might have chuckled at such fruitless flirtation, particularly when Brienne's silent responses included cool stares and flared nostrils as she held her tongue; but his mind seemed ruled by doubt now, even though Brienne had given him no cause to question her devotion. Even tonight, she seemed to be glancing his way more often than usual, and there was a different kind of light in her eyes when she looked at him. But the fact was that they hadn't spoken the words, and no oaths of any kind bound them together. Besides which, it wouldn't do to have whisperings about Brienne's honor. Jaime frowned. It was time to rectify that. His heart began to pound, whether from fear or anticipation he couldn't be sure.

Jaime's attention came back fully to the conversation when Sansa asked Reed about Jon Snow. He remembered the young man, his brow dark and brooding as he sat at the far table in the great hall. He'd been elevated quickly to Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, so he must have some worth. And Tyrion had liked him.

"Lord Howland, why do you say Jon needs to come south?" asked Sansa.

Reed again cast his eyes toward Jaime and was clearly reluctant to speak. "After the news I share with him it may be – if he agrees to come – that we can end this war immediately."

Sansa waited for him to explain, but Reed shoveled an overlarge bite of potatoes into his mouth. "Delicious," he mumbled through the food to Podrick, who bobbed his head and muttered his thanks.

There followed a short, awkward silence, during which everyone seemed to be trying to think of what to say, or whether to ask more about Ned Stark's bastard son. For his part, Jaime couldn't imagine how a bastard could alter the events of the war, unless … unless he wasn't Ned's bastard at all. His gaze shifted slowly to Sansa as his mind began to whir.

"You recall my children came here to offer the support of Greywater Watch and the Neck," said Reed after he'd swallowed, and his change in tone let everyone know that he wouldn't speak further about Jon Snow. "I haven't heard from them since Winterfell was sacked. Have they sent you word, your grace?"

Sansa paled, and her eyes softened. She put her fork down when she spoke. "No, my lord. I am sorry to say I haven't heard any news about them."

"Ah," said Reed with a sad smile. "I thought as much. Still, one cannot fault a father for asking. And asking. And asking again." He chuckled bitterly and took another bite, chewing silently and staring at the center of the small, scrubbed table.

Sansa, blinking away tears, seemed to be trying to decide what words of comfort to offer when Podrick said, "My lord, if I may, Sansa – my lady – her grace, I mean – would offer whatever food and supplies we can spare from Winterfell to aid you on the rest of your journey."

Sansa smiled quickly at Podrick and said, "Yes, Lord Howland, in appreciation of your loyalty, however we can help you, we will do it. It is decided."

Reed cleared his throat and said, "Thank you, your grace. I won't need much."

"Game may be scarce as you travel farther north, my lord," said Podrick.

"Game will be the least of my troubles," replied Reed gently, "but I thank you for the warning."

* * *

Howland Reed insisted that he would depart in the morning after breaking his fast and trouble them no more than he already had. He bid them all good night, conspicuously forgetting his weapons in the corner of Sansa's room as he bowed and turned to amble down the corridor. He certainly had a dagger or two in his boots, but the gesture was a noble one. Even though they would still take turns on watch as they always had, Brienne released a sigh that it seemed she'd been holding throughout supper.

"It is good to have the Neck secured," said Sansa, and Podrick nodded and gave her a small smile before standing to pick up several plates to take to the small kitchen and servants' station in the center of the guest house. "Though I wish Lord Howland would tell me what Jon has to do with the wars. The brothers of the Night's Watch are sworn not to involve themselves in political affairs."

"I think seeing a Lannister in Winterfell may have sealed his lips," said Jaime. "Even though you told him your plans, and he claimed to see the sense in them, he can't be certain I'm not a spy for King's Landing."

"People can think whatever they like," said Sansa firmly. "I trust you."

Jaime's throat tightened with sudden emotion, but he managed to bow his head and say, "Your grace."

The title still felt strange on his lips, but he would have to grow accustomed to it. Things would escalate quickly, now that the ravens had been sent. Besides, he'd made his oath: Sansa was his queen now.

"How can we be sure Lord Howland isn't trying to lead us astray, to lower our guard?" Brienne asked.

"It may be that Jon Snow isn't who we think he is," said Jaime. "He may be a bastard, but he may not be Ned Stark's bastard."

"I thought of that tonight," said Sansa, and she became very quiet. "That had never occurred to me before. Father never spoke of where Jon came from – never spoke of it at all. We all just … made up our minds about him. I never forgave Father for that, for betraying Mother, and now – if this is true – " Sansa swallowed, her eyes dark and far away. "I've been so wrong about so many things."

"If Jon has a legitimate claim to the Iron Throne," said Brienne gently, "he could assure that Winterfell remains yours, and that you are Queen in the North."

"No more bloodshed," whispered Sansa. She rose from her seat and looked at Brienne with such faith in her eyes that Jaime thought his heart might crack in two.

"We can hope," said Brienne, smiling.

"But we must prepare," said Jaime as he stood. "I've found that hope flowers best when nurtured by a pessimist's plans, so I suggest we continue as though Howland Reed had never planted that little seed tonight. Your grace."

Brienne's smile turned into a smirk and she stood, as well. "By your leave, your grace." And, not wearing skirts, she bowed as a male knight would.

Jaime bowed, too, and they entered their room, shutting the heavy wooden door behind them. Brienne lit an oil lamp and set it on a small table near the bed, and its dim, comfortable light seemed to warm the room even more. They could hear Podrick enter the room again through the corridor entry, load more plates and serving dishes on his tray, and shuffle down the hall toward the kitchen, clinking and clanking as he went.

Leaning against the door, Jaime sighed. After the day's events he suddenly felt, to use Tyrion's expression, as though he'd been dragged through a keyhole. And it would only get worse from here, that he knew. They might have a few quiet days between now and the inevitable conflict, but the day would come when they'd have to make their stand.

Strangely, that made him happy, and he realized he was smiling. A man without a purpose was no man at all. Perhaps that was true for women as well, for Brienne seemed oddly at peace.

She shut their corridor door and leaned against it. For a time they simply looked at each other in the flickering light, each leaning against a door as though wild animals prowled outside. Jaime began to laugh, and Brienne joined him. It was inexplicable, what they were doing: the absurdity of going against the tide of the war, and the conviction that they two would undoubtedly change the world for the better. Sometimes it struck him hard in the face, and all he could do was laugh about it.

"Come here, wench," he said, and she did, allowing herself to be enfolded into his arms completely.

They leaned together against the door and he buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling the familiar musky scent of her sweat and nuzzling the smooth skin of her neck until she shivered. She pressed languidly into his manhood, and he hummed, wanting to savor the feeling of his growing arousal.

"I am proud of you," she whispered, leveling her gaze at him.

"For what?"

A flush blossomed on her cheeks. "You finally pledged your oath."

"Ah, yes," he said. "Honor is a difficult opponent to defeat. One must almost always surrender to it, in the end."

Brienne's mouth on his brought an end to his jape, and he reveled in the taste of her.

_And now we will be together_, he thought. _Our paths are one. I'll never leave your side, nor you mine, not until we're dead_.

But if they survived?

He pulled away and looked at her squarely. "What will we do after Winterfell?" he asked again, probably for the fifth time since the miller's house. "And don't say, 'Whatever you like,' because I haven't told you yet what I'd like to do. It might be something horrible, and then where would you be?"

He knew he was asking the wrong question, but still he raised his chin and cocked a challenge at her, waiting for her to sputter and flush as she often did. But Brienne had a way of surprising him when he needed it most.

"I'd be with you," she replied simply.

For the second time tonight his throat tightened around a lump of emotion. He swallowed and nodded, feeling suddenly like a young schoolboy. "That's good," he whispered.

Brienne smiled, and her eyes glimmered again in that new way he'd seen tonight, just before she pressed her lips to his. His body responded immediately, but he forced himself to remain at the door instead of pushing her backwards until they fell onto the bed. He didn't trust himself not to ask for too much these days, because his need for her had grown practically unbearable.

As if sensing his hesitation, Brienne took charge of him, pulling his shirts over his head and unlacing his breeches before steering him to sit on the edge of the bed, where she removed his boots and stockings and tossed them against the wall. She then slid her hands up his thighs and began to work down his breeches and smallclothes.

When his manhood was freed, Brienne dove upon it and took it into her mouth, moving with a skill that she was rapidly perfecting as she learned what drove him to the brink of madness. Jaime watched her movements, groaning with every slide of her tongue and lips around him, gasping as she gripped the base of his manhood to stiffen him even more.

He grasped the collar of her woolen shirt and tugged roughly. She released him and stood to disrobe, which she did quickly, kicking off her own boots while her breeches were still gathered around her knees. She stepped out of them and strode toward him with purpose, her body strong beneath its unexpected curves. He loved every bruise on her muscled thighs, especially the ones he'd placed there with his overzealous mouth and fingers during their silent, frenzied nights.

Jaime shifted backward onto the bed and had to bite his lip as she straddled him and slid her sex up his cock … but she kept crawling upward until her blond curls and lovely cleft were right over his face. He wrapped his arms around her hips and buried his face in her maidenhood, kissing and licking and sucking there as though he were a starving man. Brienne braced herself on his shoulders and shuddered and moaned as he found the actions he knew she liked best.

He'd made her climax this way before, and he'd always loved it, having the power to unravel her so absolutely; but she placed her hands on his arms and removed them from her hips so that she could slither downward again. He was expecting her to rub herself over his cock, as she loved to do; but this time she grasped him with her hand and, very slowly, lowered herself onto him.

Her body was exquisite oil and muscle, heat and pleasure. A quiet hiss slipped through his teeth, and he kept his eyes locked with Brienne's. She bit her lip and unhurriedly began to ride him, steadying herself with her hands on his chest as she figured out how to move over him. The vulnerable yearning in her eyes made him want to crumble. He groaned and reached for her, pulling her body down onto his and clinging to her tightly as he plunged deeper into her, eliciting another gasp as her body adjusted to the penetration of his. After so many nights of silence, the sound of her voice as she moaned and sighed without reservation nearly sent him over the edge; but he held her hips so she couldn't move too quickly.

Her calves hugged his hips as she moved, and her elbows remained planted on the bed on either side of his face. But her fingers combed through his hair with the same tenderness he'd come to expect from her, and his chest throbbed with a new sort of longing. He was whole with her, as he'd never been before, and relief and clarity opened something in him.

Brienne was his, _his_ at last, and he'd be damned if he'd let anyone or anything pull them apart. His thrusts took on a determination of their own as he held her to him, unwilling even to allow her to sit up to slide over his manhood the way she seemed to wish to do, for that would put her body farther from his; so their movements as they clung tight and slammed into each other were small, intense, and focused. She kissed him and kissed him again, never taking her eyes from his, and over the blood thundering in his ears he realized she was whispering his name over and over again: _Jaime … Jaime … Jaime …_

He forced himself to slow down, to find the perfect undulation of his hips as they rocked into hers, and before long he saw the look on her face changing to one of quiet, transported concentration, the most lovely look he'd ever seen on anyone. A line appeared between her brows, meaning she was very close now, and so he reached down between them and began to circle his thumb over her sex, and felt a glorious clenching of her body around his, a sweet milking of his cock that made him want to explode into her. And when it happened now, it felt like he'd been made for this, for her body; it was as if the same pair of divine hands were squeezing and pounding the two of them into each other, making each of them more than they'd been a moment before. He moaned and pulled her tighter with his arm, keeping his hand between them to make sure every ounce of pleasure had been wrung from her before he released her. She cried out his name, and her head fell forward and she bit his shoulder. His mouth found her neck and he whispered her name there, wishing that the word could mark her as his somehow.

They stayed that way for a time, as their panting returned to normal breathing and their sweat began to cool and make them shiver. Finally they disengaged, crawled under the covers and furs together, and lay facing each other with their heads resting on the same pillow.

_It's settled_, Jaime thought. _You're mine. I'm yours_.

"If we die tonight," he said, "it won't be the Maiden who meets you."

And Brienne laughed heartily, no doubt remembering what she'd bemoaned – and what he'd offered – the first night he'd kissed her in the barn so long ago, the night they were certain they faced hanging in the morning.

"I suppose you want thanks for that?" she said, though her eyes beamed as she wiped tears of mirth from them.

"I want – " But he stopped himself. He wanted so much, and he could not allow a jape, however personal it might be to the two of them, to cheapen it.

He turned his head toward the sound of Podrick pacing the corridor of the guest house and tried to picture him, sword at his side, growing taller and broader each day, choosing his fate and making peace with it, whether it would lead to glory or death. Or both.

"So, what will we do after Winterfell?" asked Brienne, suddenly serious. Her eyes were wide and dark.

Jaime looked back at her. The silence between them deepened, and he felt himself dropping into place, finding the fit snug and perfect. "Perhaps we should pay a visit to Tarth. I'd like to meet your lord father."

Brienne snorted. "I'm not certain he'd want me without a gown, or a husband."

A thrill coursed through his body and he thought, _The things I do for love_. And when he spoke his next words, it was as easy as falling, as exhilarating as flying.

_**THE END**_


End file.
